Out of Time
by TeggieLady
Summary: The Doctor finds a way to bring Rose back, but when her and Jack are kidnapped Rose starts losing herself in the past. They need to act quick after all times running out. 10th Doctor, Torchwood team, Jack, Donna, Sarah Jane, Martha. Doctor/Rose
1. A long Way from Home

**Out of Time**

**By TeggieLady**

**Chapter one: **A long way from Home

Downtown Cardiff in the middle of the night had never really been that safe. Hell, Rose remembered it with horses, carriages and ghosts sitting on top of an overly reactive rift through time and space. But back then, she had been with the Doctor. She had been safe. Or, at least, she'd felt it.

Now, she felt anything but.

Miss Tyler's sensible clean trainers, brushing against her sensible drain pipe jeans were soaked in a substance Rose really hoped was mud. Because if it wasn't, then it could be anything, from sewage to alien slime that would burn your skin off (really wouldn't be the fist time). Her dark oversized green jacket, zipped to the top, helped her save the extra bit of warmth her body produced. Of course, it was also an almost unconscious defensive manner, but really, she had better thing to worry about right now than, if a passing mugger thought she looked like an easy target. It wasn't like she had anything they'd want any way.

Dressed in dark blue and green, Rose would have stood a chance of walking in the shadows and the alleys unnoticed. If she hadn't stumbled into a main road, that is.

The black van's horn blared as the car swerved past her, an obvious mockery of the speed limit. Rose swayed violently from side to side. This way and that way, dizzily. She wished she was drunk. Back in the day, it would have been the only reason for felling as bad as this constant swaying.

Now, there were other reasons.

Rose felt as though every atom in her body had been ripped apart then shoved back together in a miss-matched, careless way. Bright blues and defining green-smudged circles clouded her vision.

Somewhere ahead, something was screaming.

Rose looked up from her position, knees touching the cold ground. She recognised the alien almost immediately, even in her deteriorating state. It was a Meeton. No more then five or six decades old. Still a child by their standards. The people coming out of the van almost charged at the helpless creature as it roared in fear, arms swinging from side to side. Rose tried to get up, but fell back onto her knees, exhausted and unable to move. The creature was bigger than any human. Both taller and wider, a dark orange - almost red - skin colour with one large, blue eye.

Full of tears.

A humanoid shape, sure, but so alien, it would have been impossible to miss it. Even if the sound it made resembled that of a crying child.

It was in agony, people all around were screaming and panicking and running in all different directions. The terrified sixty year old alien child screamed in fear. People only saw the big alien and the loud painful noises.

So far away from home.

It was crying when Torchwood shot it.

"HEY!" yelled Rose, using the last bit of her meagre energy, suddenly remembering how to speak. Even from across the busy road the team heard her. They immediately looked her way.

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT!" she was losing conciseness. "You didn't have to…" she fainted before her voice got too weak for even her to hear.

She fell hard on the cold pavement. From her kneed down stance, it was only a short way to fall, but just laying down was bliss for the girl; the cold floor against her burning head a deep comfort.

Torchwood brought her in.


	2. The light to end all Darkness

**Chapter 2: **The light to end all Darkness. 

The teaspoon stirred slowly the excessive amount of sugar into the rest of the tea mixture. 

"So, how long have you two been travelling together?" asked Smith.

"Not long, little over a month. She's driving me up the wall, you know?" answered the other Smith, taking a sip of his tea once he had finished stirring in the sugar. He grimaced, put the mug down and then, with it still wet, he plunged the teaspoon back into the sugar pot and shovelled out more of white substance.

"Me! You're the one who keeps licking everything. We went to this planet a while ago and God only knows why, he licked the light bulb in the royal chamber, burnt his tongue, swore and that got us arrested."

"I wanted to see what it was made of. Very rare that type of manufacturing, haven't seen anything like it since the start of the Cawar period, hundreds of years ago by their standards. The light of darkness, that's what type of bulb it was. Of course, they didn't call it that until way after that form of electricity was created, didn't take half as long as you humans to do it… do you know how long it took you apes to realise that the simple control over a few choice materials could-"

"So, Sarah Jane, you used to travel with him?" interrupted Donna, after rolling her eyes at the babbling alien sitting on the settee next to her. He was now trying to pour the last few grains of sugar from the pot into his mug, without spilling either the tea, or the sugar on the carpet.

"Yes, of course that was before he was in this body. Regenerated several times since then, he has explained to you about regeneration?" inquired the investigating journalist.

"Oh, yeah. Gave me a bit of shock that he could just change his body like that, mad if you ask me." Laughed Donna, seeing similarities between the woman opposite her and herself.

"Well, you would rather me not tell you and you just witness first hand without an explanation as I burst into flames then, hump?" The tenth Doctor raised his eyebrows condescendingly at his companion. "Not doing that again… new rule: always tell them."

"Sounds like you speak from experience. I pity the person who watched you do that before you explained it. Who was it who watched regeneration without a hint of explanation?" smiled Sarah Jane in mocking good natured way.

"Rose." The room was suffocated by a thick quilt of awkward conversation, regret and disbelief as to how easily Sarah could have put her foot in it.

"Ah, well, yes and she still stayed with you? Very brave girl. I was so sorry to hear that…she really was a very…I'm sorry she died Doctor." Sarah's eyes dropped to the floor and her tea cupped by her hands was forgotten. 

"What?" the Doctor almost yelled in surprise.

"I saw her name on the list of the dead. At the Battle of Canary Warf?" She still remembered the day she found out. Her thoughts went immediately to the girl who seemed so lost in the Doctor's world, but at the same time so ready to be a part of it. Then, her heart had gone out to the Doctor himself, the pain her death must have caused him clear to Sarah.

"She's not dead." The Doctor put her straight, looking up and meeting her eyes, unmistakable pain shining through. "Trapped in another world and I will never be able to see her again without ripping apart both Universes. But no she's not dead." 

_No, she was anything but dead._

"You met her? Rose." Donna asked, trying to find more about this mystery woman who seemed to be the only thing that kept the Doctor going sometimes. At the same time, Donna was desperate to get him back in the cheerful mood the Doctor was in when he came here to visit his old friend.

"Yes, just the once. I liked her, she…I am so sorry Doctor." Replied Sarah quietly. 

Silence.

Suddenly it dawned on Donna why the Doctor was here. He needed to talk, but not to her. 

"I think I'll do a bit of shopping, ran out of milk this morning. Travel all over the universe is fine and all, but I want my cuppa to be as normal as possible. Think I saw a spar down the road, I'll just nip out now." She left before she turned into the only human who could babble more than the Doctor, shutting the front door with a slam behind her. 

"Why are you here Doctor?" Sarah Jane asked straight out.

"I miss her." He missed her too, she had to know that but, she was here… Rose wasn't. "I talk about her to Donna and I did to Martha, to a point where she got sick of it and left me." He laughed humourlessly, no one had ever left him because he talked about his past too much. "I miss her and its not getting any better."

"You love her." she'd seen it before, saw it in Rose's jealous eyes when she and the Doctor had been holding hands when they first met. 

"I never got to tell her… too sacred and then I ran out of time." 

"So, you're just going to give up? That's it?" was that what he had become? The Great I-can-do-anything-man Sarah Jane had fallen in love with all those years ago?

"There's nothing else I can do! It's impossible" That used to be his favourite word. Now he hates it.

"Don't give up. There's always a way. Even if you've got to take a risk, wouldn't seeing her again be worth it?" Her voice was raised before she even knew what had happened; she stands up after slamming her almost full cup of tea on the coffee table. Its contents splash over the side. The Doctor follows her in suit.

"It's worth more than anything, just to have her back. But what if…" he starts to yell back, passionate and strong. But then his voice wavers. 

"What?" her voice is now quite and understanding. 

"What if she doesn't want to come back?" That's it, he's given in to his fear. 

"Than, at least she'll know you tried, and that, that will mean more than anything." She wished he had tried it for her 

"To show her I tried. To fight like she would for me."

"Just try. Please? You can do it, I know you can."

"I have found a way." She looks at him shocked. "But it's dangerous and probably won't even work. And if she doesn't want to come back-"

"Do it."

The Doctor knows Sarah Jane doesn't understand how dangerous it really is.

But he decides to do it anyway. 

For Rose, the heavens would be opened. And the worlds would bleed. She was the difference between life and death… because without her, there was only death to this lonely, bone-weary Time lord. Without her, the world was all shaded in black and white. He wanted more than that. Wanted the shades of grey to plunge the world, the universe into morning. 

Away from darkness.

With her, there was light.

The sun always shone and when it rained, it did only because it was meant to. Because that moment with her would be even more perfect if it rained. She made the difference. With her, love was always triumphant. A hug always signified the end of an adventure, never goodbye. 

The start of their happy ever after.

Without her the only thing that signified the end of the otherwise timeless life long pain that consumed him, both in his waking hours and in his dreams (which he usually spent with her), was death.

The only end to the pain was death.

Permanent death.

Without her, he was just that, dead.

But, he needed to live once more. 

Because that was what she'd want him to do.

He wanted, needed to feel alive for her.

Yet he couldn't live without her.

He tried.

So now, as he felt the determination swell within his chest, his mind, the Doctor allowed a spark of hope to exist.

He would find her.

No matter what, he would be there for her. 

And, finally, he realized what she had meant, still did actually, to him.

His light, his guide, his touchstone…

His everything.

So, it came as no surprise, afterwards, the knowledge that, only by saving her, would he ever be able to save himself. 

It was high time to light up the darkness. 


	3. Scaring the staff

* * *

Right so what's the deal

**Chapter 3**: Scaring the staff

The darkness was almost too much to bear.

Never forgotten voices echoed through Rose Tyler's aching brain. All she saw was black but flashes of things past, things she sometimes didn't want to remember, crowded her mind. Time, it seemed, would never let her forget. These voices repeated statements that had once meant so much to Rose in such a rapid succession that she was almost unable to distinguish between them.

So, it was just noise, haunting her.

"Happy Birthday, love."

"You alright, Babe?"

"Did I mention it also travels in Time?"

"Quite right too."

"I'd like to try and be a Dad, to you. If you want to."

"Bestist Big sister ever."

"I'm never going to leave you. Never."

Time passed unnoticed until…

Rose woke up.

* * *

"…what if she's a nutter? I mean, she is ill, shouldn't we take her to a hospital, let them lot deal with her?" A man's voice, curt and proper with a hint of whinge, spoke.

"Don't be daft, Owen, you can't even get near her without an electric shock. What if she's an alien. And besides, it must be terrifying for her, the poor girl." A kinder voice, but with a clear 'I'm-in-charge-don't-piss-with-me' tone responded. This time, it was a woman's voice with a strong welsh accent.

Rose, hearing the discussion, decided she'd had enough of being the 'poor girl', so she sat up straight in one strong movement. And immediately wished she hadn't.

Pain blacked out her vision once more and for a second, Rose fought for consciousness. Far away voices making statements were all she heard.

"Is she awake?"

"What if she's dangerous?"

These stupid questions made her determined enough to win the battle and open her eyes, once again. The light not hurting her eyes as much on the second try.

"Hello." Said the woman from before; she had long dark hair. "My name's Gwen, what's yours?"

Rose didn't answer.

"Alright now, it's my turn." Snapped a man in a white lab coat, the one from earlier. "My name's Owen Harper and if you don't answer these questions you're going to wish you've never been born."

His threatening manner, along with the Japanese woman's uneasy expression, a man in a suit, with his arms crossed, impartial stance and the furious look on Gwen' s face directed at Owen made this quite a laughable picture.

So Rose laughed.

She stopped short, though, when she realised she was scaring the staff.

"I'm…I'm sorry, I couldn't help it." Rose giggled. She then swung her legs off around the lab table she had found herself laid on and landed her feet on the floor with a thud. She ignored Gwen's advice against standing up yet.

Rose looked around. She was in an underground area, with obvious signs of alien technology, small blue lights and gloomy grey walls.

"My electro protection is working, right? So, how did you bring me here?" Asked Rose, referring to the electric shock they would have received when they bringing her in.

"Rubber gloves" said the man in the suit, uncrossing his arms to reveal a pair a daffodil yellow rubber monstrosities. It was the kind Jackie used to wear after she'd just painted her nails, and needed to wash up. The almost smug look on the man's face suggested it had been his idea.

Rose nearly liked him.

"Right… so what's the deal? Where am I?" Rose asked finally, looking at the team now with a defensive expression.

"You don't know?" asked the Japanese woman eyebrows raised.

"Just dropped out of the sky into a strange place, Babe, could be anywhere… could be in Hell, for all I know." Rose smiled falsely as she walked casually towards them.

"You're in Cardiff." They all simultaneously reached behind their backs. It was then that Rose really did smile, the tell tale movement giving them away. They were all carrying guns. No one had, however, pulled one out until then.

"Not quite Hell then…" Rose muttered to herself "Year?"

"What?" asked Gwen in shock. Rose refused to think how much she looked like Gwyneth from all those years ago, when things in her life had been so much more simple.

"Year! Name a year, any year, preferably the one we're in." she made it sound like a joke, a game show refusing to let on how important knowing it was to her. Now level with the team, she took one more step forward and they were now the ones with their backs to a corner, without realizing it

"2008." Answered Gwen.

_That can't be right. _

But by the looks of confusion on the team's faces, Rose knew it was.

"Really," Eyebrows hitting the top of her hairline, Rose was thrown back a bit. "Blimey! bloody hell! That's….weird. So, what is this place… some off-branch of UNIT? LINDA in arms? Part of the Roswell underground spaceship reunion? What?"

"Torchwood." Said Owen.

Rose hated that word.

"Oh, right… hang on…why is there a Torchwood in Cardiff?" she was missing some important piece of information, it was clear, but she couldn't grasp what, exactly.

"Rift monitoring." Answered the rubber-gloved, suit-wearing welsh man.

"Rift monitoring… right" Rose repeated the word once or twice before it had any meaning to her. "What!! There isn't a rift in Cardiff! There can't be, one in Norway yeah, instead, but-" Rose cut herself off from her excited yell and glanced around wildly.

She shoved her hands roughly into the pockets of her dark green waterproof jacket. The old fashioned anorak looking strange on her young form. Rose unzipped the front zip from her chin to the bottom of the coat just above her knees, revealing a long-sleeved, tight and white T-shirt. She then searched her inside pockets frantically, until she found what she had been looking for.

Rose held it reassuringly on the palm of her hand.

The Torchwood team stared in shock as the weird woman in the anorak put on a pair of red and blue, battered 3D glasses.

Rose looked at her arm in close inspection.

Then yelled again, this time screaming in a high-pitched girlish squeal of joy. After a few more seconds, she seemed to reassert control over herself.

"No, no, no, no, no, that's… that's just," and repeat nonsense.

"Can we help you?" asked Gwen caustically, clearly convinced that Rose was indeed a 'nuttter'.

Rose ignored her and carried on looking at her clothes, this time more closely at her trainers.

"Miss?" the rubber-gloved man tried. "My names Ianto Jones, if you could just-" Rose cut him off before he could carry on talking to her like she was his hard-of-hearing Grandmother.

"Is the sky empty?" the team didn't understand Rose's perfectly sane question.

"I'm sorry?" asked Gwen.

"Is the sky is empty?" Rose repeated patiently.

"Yes" Gwen smiled reassuringly.

"There are no people in the sky?" Zeppelins, with restaurants, schools, cinemas, taxi services…anything.

"No." Owen raised his eyebrows, content with his belief that people like this should not be allowed out into the world.

"And the traffic lights!! The traffic lights… are they red?" Not blue. Why would they be blue anyway? Rose had never understood that part of the other Universe.

"Yeah." Gwen sounded more uneasy with each question posed. Even more so when Rose laughed hysterically at the answer.

_But this was too good to be true. _

"Ok, ok, ok, so answer me this… this place…this planet, this is Earth and this Wales, right?" Had to be sure.

"Yes." Ianto and the Japanese woman answered at the same time.

"The place is Cardiff?" _Why did it always have to be Cardiff?_

"Yes."

"I am in Great Britain." The first statement, not a question. Verifying it for herself more than anything.

"Yes."

"The UK?" that was a question, needed to be sure.

"Yes."

"On Earth, in England, in the 21st century? Right now, I'm on Earth?" She couldn't get her hopes up without being absolutely certain… just one final question.

"Yes."

"Brilliant! Now….do you have a President?"

"A what?"

"In England, do you have a Prime Minster or a President?" typical Torchwood, trying to complicate things.

"A Prime Minster." Answered Gwen with a frown, after glancing at the other woman and Ianto.

"Really?" asked Rose, unable to believe it.

"Yes."

"Really?" Rose smiled, her tongue between her teeth.

"Yes."

Once again Rose laughed.

Now she was glad she was scaring the staff.

"Ermmm, are you alright, miss?" inquired Ianto politely.

"Oh, I am better than 'alright' I am bloody brilliant, I am fantastic!" Rose threw her arms in the air. Unfortunately whilst being so fantastic Rose had failed to notice Owen reaching for his stun gun.

She fell to the floor with a thud and blackness swamped her eyes once more.

* * *

Rose Tyler woke, for the third time, in the Infirmary. This time, though, she found herself alone on the floor. The staff had obviously expected her not to wake up this soon. The base was now quieter, as the staff had gone back to their separate corners of the room to do their jobs, and Rose suspected two had even gone home. Judging by the pain in her head and back, Rose thought she'd been unconscious for at least three hours.

Rose leaned around the corner and spotted Owen by the coffee machine in the kitchen, stirring his mug and obviously not having spotted her yet. Looking up, as she heard footsteps, Rose saw Ianto carrying some papers out of a boxed off office, looking straight ahead, also not seeing her below. But, as he walked down the stairs, he came nearer to her and her awoken presence was threatened. Seeing a small, closed off corridor with lights, Rose turned and walked along the sharp corner.

Cells lined the wall, each with one glass door blocking the way out. There were circular shaped air holes in each one of them. Even though she saw it as a dead end, Rose carried on walking. She got to the end cell, saw nothing, turned and jumped.

A weevil.

Rose hadn't seen weevils in years. Its teeth bared in a violent angry manner, typical of a weevil, almost howling. Then Rose caught its eyes. The noise ceased and the pair stared at each other for a minute. Almost bewitched by each other, the weevil suddenly broke contact and calmed, shirked back to the depth of the cell. Something white on the wall caught Rose's eye, as she took a step back from the cell. Unable to remember when she had gotten so close to the creature, Rose read the white laminated sign next to the cell:

_Janet._

"Well, well." A sneering voice broke the silence, almost making Rose jump. She turned sharply and saw Owen standing next to her and blocking the only exit.

"What do we have here?" he smiled almost sweetly.

Until Rose pulled out her gun, hidden behind her coat.

He looked shocked for a moment before Rose hit him hard over the head with her other hand, rendering him unconscious.

Rose ran through the cells, and across the floor of the base. Ianto, spotting her this time as he walked across, cried out for her to stop.

Yeah, right…

Up the stairs she went. Rose got halfway up, before footsteps from ahead sounded and made her turn the gun towards the intruder.

The boss was back.

"Hi, Rose." Said the man, pointing the gun towards Rose's head.

"Hi, Jack" Rose's finger touched the trigger.

Their faces broke into matching grins. Both dropped the guns to the floor with a clatter, walked towards each other and smashed their lips together in a passionate embrace.

The Torchwood team stood in shock as their boss snogged the enemy.

* * *

(I didn't wanna put this at the top as I thought it may spoil the surprise. If you find spoilers in the next paragraph shut your eyes.)

Right then…

Set in:

Torchwood season 2

Owen is not dead.

Martha has met the team.

Gwen is not married, (because why should she be, when her and Jack can have lots of lovely babies?)

In the original Universe.

Any more questions? Review please, it makes me feel all happy :)


	4. The man who couldn’t die

Chapter 4: The man with…

**Chapter 4: **The man who couldn't die

They all sat in the conference room with a cup of tea. Team Torchwood on one side and Rose and Jack on the other.

"I like your hair." Jack said quietly, while looking at her strangely, almost as though he was seeing her for the first time.

Rose fingered the light brown heavy strands that were hanging down the left side of her face. The rest tied back almost to the top of her head in a mixture of plates, braids and lose curls. Black wooden beads in the plates made the style look almost old. Older than a few thousand years old, sacrificial like.

"Ta, needed a new look. Kept it out of the way while I was in the Rainforest just on your average daily monster hunt." Rose answered brightly.

Jack noted the black nail vanish that covered her fingers, chipping at the end, where the nail had grown out. Something registered in his mind that the Rose he knew, used to bite her nails. Black thin bandages around her hands and wrists gave the single silver ring on her middle right finger an almost witch like effect. The markings on the ring gave away its alien origin.

"So, been anywhere nice?" smiled Rose.

Jack laughed before answering in his American drawl,

"Sheffield, crash landing place of a Judoon, turned out to be a hoax,"

"Ah shame," teased Rose "I'm sure he'd have gotten on lovely with Janet."

"Oh, you've met Janet?" Jack ginned, every inch the flirting con man she'd once met. "She's my best girl."

"I thought I was your best girl?" Raised eyebrows, Rose feel into the trap of flirting with the Captain.

"You're just not as pretty." Jack laughed, strange. He hadn't felt like really laughing in a while, now he did.

Owen broke the happy moment ruthlessly.

"Excuse me, but would you mind not flirting with the violent bitch that attacked me?"

"Ahhhhhwwo, would you like me to get some ice for your head? Keep the swelling down?" Rose paid attention to Owen and the other members of the team for the first time upon entering the room.

"Rose…" Jack warned.

"Cause otherwise your heads just going to get bigger…" She stretched the last word, smiling with her tongue between her teeth.

"Rose! You were in another universe, how did you get here?" Jack cut the conversation and turned into the dreaded but necessary direction, earning a look of shock from his team. They stared hard at Rose, all except for Gwen, who was looking Jack in the eye fearlessly.

"From the other side of Hell, you mean? No idea. Got here just in time to see your crack team of Torchwoods finest brutally take down an unarmed Meetron and realised I was defiantly on a side of Hell. After all, where there's a hell there's a Torchwood." Jack turned his warm understanding eyes cold and looked over at his team.

"You took down a non threatening alien?" he snapped.

"Jack, this thing was in the middle of Cardiff, wouldn't move without getting distressed, it used Tosh as a shield and wouldn't listen to any of our demands." Owen tried to explain.

"Because it didn't speak English, you moron. It must have been terrified. Crash landed here, probably never seen a human before and what do you do? Well you make a lasting impression, at least. Shooting it dead when it was completely defenceless," Rose argued back at the team but focused all her anger at Owen.

Bad move, he started to feel threatened and ready to attack.

"We did what we had to do to protect human lives." He said quietly.

"Bollocks, that wasn't a threat! That was murder. Judging by its size, it was a child." Rose clenched her fists and looked the man dead in the eye.

"A child?" Tosh's lost voice echoed through the tension filled room.

"As long as you don't shoot humans that's ok, if there's sixty billion on one planet and there are thousands of planets in the Universe, just think how many aliens you can kill by lunch time." Rose's eyes lit up when she said the world 'aliens', not unlike the way Jack's did when he was trying to get people to see his way of thinking "…with just one excuse."

"We didn't know." Replied Owen.

"You didn't stop to find out." Rose whispered.

"Why did you think Torchwood would be involved in bringing you here?" Jack broke up the death glare fest between Owen and Rose. He drew the attention back to a subject Rose was trying to avoid talking about in front of his team.

"Didn't, Rift activity and your team brought me here. Not here for fun, I hate Cardiff, you know that. Full of Welsh people, no offence," Rose said as she looked at the team. "Thought it might have something to do with enemy number one. Have you seen him?"

Before Jack could answer, Owen broke in with the earlier conversation.

"Look, whatever happens, we protect this planet." Rose understood that, more then he would ever know. "You don't shit in your own backyard."

Rose laughed and said,

"No, you shit in someone else's, only problem is sooner or later the neighbours come round."

"Right, that's all we're going to get for tonight." Jack clapped his hands and stood up. "Tosh and Gwen, sorry for calling you back so late, but as you can see I thought this was important. Rose here was originally from this Universe, but a few years ago got trapped in a Parallel one,"

"You were there…in a parallel Universe in another different Universe." Stuttered Gwen

"Where the traffic lights are blue and the grass is a spotty yellow." Rose said brightly smiley humourlessly.

"The grass is yellow?" asked Ianto frowning.

"Only when dogs have pissed on it." Alien planets would really blow these people's minds.

"Meeting adjourned." Jack made shooing gestures with his hands. "Go home."

As the team walked out, Rose turned to Jack.

"What about me, Captain? Any ideas what to do with me?"

The Hub door slammed shut; Jack grinned.

He pointed at Rose, a sign she took to mean 'wait here' and then turned and ran to his office. He came down a second later as music filled the Hub, making the strange place seem warm for once in its dark and gloomy past. Rose laughed and took her coat off as Jack walked back down the stairs taking, off his long grey coat as he came.

"Our song." Rose said as he took her hand and they began to dance to the 1940s number.

"Our song" agreed Jack as Glen Miller urged them to dance like they did all those years before.

* * *

It had been a whole day since the meting had taken place. Rose had explained so many times to Jack what had happened, she was sure he knew it better than her.

She had been in the other Universe, in Tokyo to be more precise, testing out a new weapon against none physical beings, with the aid of a very friendly ghost, who sometimes got too friendly when he thought Rose wouldn't notice. Like in the shower.

She had been walking back to her apartment, then BANG!

Next thing she knew, Rose had been waking up in a sewer, in Cardiff, at night, with a head that felt like it was numb with pain, yet at the same time still managed to feel like it was going to fall off.

He hadn't told her anything.

Nothing about the Doctor.

Or Torchwood.

Or why he wasn't dead, after Satellite five.

Rose got the feeling that the team hated her, so she tried to make it better.

"I love you and want to have your babies."

Not the reaction she had been hoping for as she placed a coffee on Gwen's desk, but she could cope with that.

"Isn't that genetically impossible?" Rose answered, borrowing Owen's empty chair and pulling it towards Gwen's desk, where she sat.

"We'll find a way." Gwen said after looking up with a start, the smiling. "Sorry, I thought you were Ianto."

"Nah, Jack actually threw him out, it was quite funny, said he needed to go home." Rose smiled at the memory. Just her, Jack and Gwen left in the hub at such a late hour, giving the girls the opportunity to have, what was known universally as, 'a girlie chat'.

"Yeah, Ianto spends more time in here than Jack does, and Jack lives here!" Gwen grinned and sipped her coffee, desperate to learn more about Rose, and in doing so Jack.

"Everyone seems sorta… up tight, you know? I mean I know I'm all new and shiny for the team to poke and prod at, but…" Rose let the sentence hang.

"It's because you're a friend of Jack's, the last old friend of Jack's who he greeted like that had a bomb strapped to him and then handcuffed me to him. Naturally, we've been a little suspicious since." Gwen tried to turn this into a lighter situation, glad when Rose smiled and did the same.

"Ah, good to know. So, this last old friend of Jack's, did he have a name?"

* * *

Jack knew what he had to do; he just really didn't want to do it.

Not until he was sure there was no other option.

Jack picked up the phone and rang the number on the piece of paper on his hand.

He spoke to the person briefly before putting down the phone again.

He looked out of the office window and saw Gwen and Rose, now chatting happily with each other. It was strange, but he had always known those two would get along. He tried not to ask himself if that was why he had employed Gwen, because she had been so much like Rose.

He took a deep breath and then walked outside.

"Gwen, are you nearly finished? It's time to go home."

Gwen sat back straight at her desk and Rose pulled away; it reminded him of two school children caught doing something wrong then quickly trying to make up for it.

"Yeah, almost, give me a minute."

"Right, as for you Rose Tyler." He put on his coat and marched up to her, then stated importantly. "It's been brought to my attention that you are not entirely enjoying your time here at Torchwood. So I have one thing and one thing only to say to that." He pulled her away from the desk and then called the invisible lift. "How 'bout a drink on the balcony?"

* * *

Where he actually took her was an all-night café, not far from the Hub.

He told her about the Master, the other Time Lord who had almost destroyed him and the Doctor.

About Martha Jones and how she saved the world.

About Bad Wolf.

And about the man who couldn't die.

And at the end, the coffee had turned cold; the two sips Rose had taken from it long ago simply a form of having something to do.

"I really need to get to him."

"I know." Jack nodded understandingly.

"Well, I know how…"

Rose pulled out a list from her pocket.

"But I need your help."

* * *

Finally Gwen had finished. Weevil reports from three weeks ago now complete. It had been quiet since Rose Tyler had fallen from the rift.

Rose Tyler.

Gwen typed the name into ID profile on her computer; it couldn't hurt to have a look.

She found her name on the list of the dead, at the Battle of Canary Warf. A name came up along with Miss Tyler's all through the reposts related to Rose. A name that Torchwood was more than a little interested in.

And from that moment on, Gwen knew she was in way over her head.

* * *

"Tosh, I need you to check out something for me." Jack ordered as soon as the technology expert walked into the Hub on Monday morning. "Find me any sightings of a guy with a small blue box, should have the words 'public police call box' written on the side. It's a telephone box from the nineteen sixties…"

"How will that help?" asked Rose from her position of lying on the floor with her green jacket off, looking strangely relaxed. Jack had quite impressively gotten all the parts she'd asked for in the space of the weekend and she was now immersed in building her magnificent machine. "He'll be long gone by the time we get there. Or it could be the wrong him from an earlier or further point along his timeline."

"It's worth a shot." Answered Jack, taking the coffee Ianto offered him.

"A police public call box?" Asked Ianto, his brow creased.

"Yeah." Shrugged Jack. "It's called a TARDIS, it's a spaceship."

"Isn't that the Doctors space ship?" asked Ianto. The rest of the team looked confused. They couldn't remember where they had heard that name.

Gwen, however, had spent the weekend coming to the conclusion that she should not say anything. She trusted Jack, a lot more than she really should. At least more than she would admit to, anyway. The way he was with Rose was unlike any way she had seen him before. Happy. Rose was, to Jack it seemed, Family. Something Jack was a little reluctant to talk about.

"How do you know that?" asked Jack, half impressed, half worried.

"I worked at Torchwood London; he was there at the Battle of Canary Warf."

"He was." Answered Jack swiftly, "and both Rose and the Doctor are very good friends of mine, so no shooting."

"The Doctor?" asked Gwen, finding her chance to find out more about the man, alien. "But isn't he, like, Torchwoods main target?"

Jack laughed, "Enemy number one, you mean? Yeah, he is, but I knew him way before Torchwood and I trust him more than Torchwood anyway."

"Got it!" yelled Tosh.

Rose jumped up from the cold metal grating on the floor, tripped over the spanner and skipped over to Tosh at the computer.

She read the address and phone number over Tosh's shoulder.

"You have got to be kidding me…" she whispered amazed. She then pulled out her new mobile that Jack had almost had to force onto her and dialled the number.

The conversation was surprising.

"Hello, this is Rose Tyler, I err…" at first she sounded confident, then Jack heard it waver.

"Yeah! erm…cool yeah…erm…sorry have you, sorry stupid question have you seen him lately? Its just we got separated an' I was wondering if-"

Rose broke off suddenly.

"You have?"

"Yeah…no, that's fine I don't want to, I mean it was three weeks ago."

Rose suddenly became desperate.

"No! Really, you don't have to; it's ok, please, just-" the phone was cut off.

"She's coming." Said Rose to Jack dropping her hand from her ear.

"Who?" asked Gwen.

"She?" asked Jack.

* * *

The next day there was a rather impressive disturbance at the Hub.

"What's happening?" Jack almost yelled over the sound of the Hub invasion signal.

"Something has tracked where we are." Replied Tosh as her hands danced around the keyboard wildly. "It's picked up the alien disturbance of lift, whatever it is, it has tracked us using the invisible lifts cloaking devise."

"Brilliant!" Yelled Rose, pulling on her jacket. "Are you coming to see what's up top, Captain?" asked Rose, turning to Jack and smiling cheekily.

She ran before Jack could tell her he didn't think it was the Doctor.

As Rose ran out of the Hub, she saw a woman standing next to where the lift should be, examining the invisible space with a small red laser like device.

"You couldn't resist, could you?" asked Rose, grinning as she got nearer to the woman.

"Rose!" yelled the woman, uncharacteristically pulling her into a hug that took Rose by surprise.

"Nice to see you too," Rose laughed.

When they pulled apart Rose turned to Jack.

"Sarah Jane Smith, this is-" Sarah interrupted Rose's introduction as she caught sight of the man she was being introduced to.

"Jack Harkness." She said coldly.

"Miss Smith, it's been a while." Jack stood stock still.

Sarah Jane smiled and said, "Not long enough."

* * *

Chapter four, yep that was it, what do you think?

LAST Torchwood on Friday (sniff, but it does have Spike in it so…)

THEN

Doctor Who on SATURDAY!!


	5. The Past Companion Brigade

**Chapter 5: **The Past Companion Brigade

_Previously…_

"_Jack Harkness." She said coldly. _

"_Miss Smith, it's been a while." Jack stood stock still. _

_Sarah Jane smiled and said, "Not long enough."_

_Now…_

"So, you two know each other?" asked an awkward Rose, while smiling conversationally.

"Rose, this man is the Head of Torchwood Three." Stated Sarah, rather dramatically.

"She knows. We're standing on top of it." Jack smiled back, crossing his arms in a way that radiated smugness and seemed to irritate Sarah Jane even further.

Sarah glanced at Rose.

"Maybe it would be better if we took this inside?" asked Rose, already leading the way in.

Sarah didn't take her eyes off of Jack, until his back was turned and then, looking around suspiciously, she followed.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

The conference room seemed out in the open, yet, as the three sat down, Jack on one side Rose and Sarah Jane on the other, tension made the room feel closed off.

"How do you know each other?" asked Rose, this time firmer.

"After the Battle of Canary Warf, I investigated Torchwood." Said Sarah coldly. "Your name was on the list of the dead… I thought-"

"Sorry… the Battle of what?" asked Rose in shock.

"The Battle of Canary Warf, it's what they're calling the Torchwood One fiasco that had nothing to do with Torchwood Three or me." Jack nearly shouted the last part. "I knew it was bad, but they didn't listen. I tried everything and I still lost people I cared about."

"The Valiant child will die in battle so very soon." Rose echoed the Beast's words, causing Jack and Sarah to look at her.

"What?" asked Jack.

"It's something someone predicted… about me. A few years ago when I was travelling with the Doctor. Called himself 'the Devil', said I was going to die."

"But you didn't." Stated Sarah, smiling but confused.

"No, but three months later, the Doctor was writing my name on the list of the dead, at the Battle of Canary Warf." As she looked up, she must have seen something in their faces, almost identical. "You thought I was dead." She said to no one in particular. "Speaking of the Doctor. Sarah used to travel with him, did you know?" Rose asked Jack, Jack looked at her.

"Of course you did. Amazing isn't it? The three of us, all meeting up, all having travelled with the Doctor."

"What?" asked Sarah Jane, staring at Jack in utter shock.

"You talked to him, a few weeks ago? Got a phone number?" asked Jack looking at Sarah.

"No. He doesn't exactly make house calls much less leave business cards." Sarah looked kindly at Rose. "I think he just needed to talk."

"About what?" asked Rose, intrigued.

"You." Rose opened her mouth unattractively. "Sounded like he was looking for a way to get you back… And, six weeks later, I get a call from you! I wanted to see if you were alright. See if I could help. Tracked your phone call with my computer..."

"Right. Ok, but you don't know how he did it, or anything. But you know it was him. That he really found a way to get me back." Rose said trying to get things clear in her head. "So, why don't you two like each other?" she finished suddenly, changing the subject.

"Don't look at me." Answered Jack, his hands raised.

"He works for Torchwood. An organisation based purely on finding and tracking the Doctor. Trying to hurt him, to use him. Captain Harkness has a specific, almost obsession with the Doctor; I thought he was in danger. I was trying to protect him." Sarah was defensive, but both Rose and Jack knew she would never apologise for trying to keep the Doctor safe.

"Besides what happened in Norway was a farce." Sarah finished tartly, making Jack roll his eyes.

"Norway?" Rose looked up at Jack. "What happened in Norway?"

"There was a disturbance. My team was sent to a beach there a few years ago, there was a vortex dust trail almost covering the beach. Few strange readings, a spaceship frequency programming set." Jack explained things so clinically that Sarah had to intervene.

"It was an open beach, not one of Torchwood's pet projects. It should have been open to the public after it was examined. Not closed up for six months because you couldn't find anything." Sarah snapped, mostly annoyed that she had gotten caught while trying to investigate there.

"This report, can I see it?" asked Rose, getting up.

"Sure, Ianto-" Rose was already gone.

Sarah and Jack stood up, facing each other.

"Why should I trust you?" Sarah asked, looking him in the eye.

"You shouldn't, not if you don't want to. But do you trust the people who do? Rose trusts me. So does the Doctor, a hell of a lot probably, because if he is behind this then I don't think it's a coincidence that Rose landed here in Cardiff. Which means he trusts me, too. With something that…I care about Rose and about the Doctor. My guess is you care about them too, otherwise you wouldn't have left your son behind to come all the way over here to be in my territory." Jack started to walk away.

"When he came to me, the way he talked, he sounded like he found a way to get her back. But he was scared she wouldn't want to go back with him." Sarah didn't like it, but she did it anyway.

"So, what… now he's not so afraid of that anymore?" Asked Jack, turning around to face her.

"No." said Sarah, then changed her mind. "I don't know. The way he talked, it was like…"

"Like what?"

"Like he found a way but…it was too dangerous." _Had she really just said that?_

"Since when does the Doctor not do something because he thinks it too dangerous?" Jack turned to go out of the door.

"Did you really travel with him?" She asked as he got near the door.

"Yeah, until he left me behind." Jack didn't turn around.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

Rose was holding the report on Norway while typing things into her machine. It was a computer monitor and key board, but the main hard drive looked like something out of the TARDIS. Rose's jacket was hooked onto the wall next to her, as she worked.

"OK, Rose, what is it?" asked Jack with his arms crossed, almost smiling with amusement.

"When I got trapped in the other world, the Doctor used a dying sun to say goodbye. He used the power of a supernova to send a message across the Void. It was…it was only a projection but if you were getting reports three months after the Battle, on a beach called Dar Ling van Stratten…"

"That's what the beach was called." Replied Sarah Jane.

"Know what that translates as?" Rose asked.

"Bad Wolf Bay." Jack looked at Rose, a strange look she had never seen on him before.

"There was a connection from that world to this one. He must have been hovering over the beach in this one, no matter how many billions of miles away he was directed to it. That's why it called me to that beach. But being there like that, for so long. Just hovering over it. It left a mark. In this universe too."

"So how does that help you?" This time it was Owen who asked; Rose faced the team with a start realising she had all there attention.

"Think of this machine like a phone. And every spaceship has a number. Now, I've got readings from the tracks that were made on Bad Wolf Bay by the TARDIS, I can type in the number and send a message to the TARDIS, activate it so it sets in sometime after he's been to your house." Rose nodded at Sarah , "and voila!" she finished with her arms in the air, "He swoops in to pick me up…or at least it works in theory."

"What's the message? The one you're sending him." Asked Jack, trying to guess where and when Rose had learned to make a machine as advanced as this.

Rose pressed a button on the keyboard. The machine beeped once and then ran a page out from its hard drive. It was a white piece of paper with holes around the sides, in a ring binders way. Rose ripped off the sheet when it stopped printing and handed it to Jack.

"I needed a way he would know it was me." She explained as he looked at it. "I couldn't say Torchwood or Captain Jack… thought that was too obvious. And if you were trying to get his attention for as long as I think you have…it wouldn't have worked."

Jack read the sheet, before putting it down on a near by desk.

"You needed something personal." He agreed.

BAD WOLF

That seemed appropriately personal.

With that Rose set to work.

The door to the hub opened and a woman walked in. The alarms went off and the lights flashed.

Jack introduced her.

"Rose, this is Martha Jones."

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

"I thought he said you were blonde." The first words shared by the pair of past companions didn't exactly turned out to be the way each of them had planned. Martha's weren't even supposed to be as rude as they came out.

"I though he said you were smart." Jack really did have a lot to answer for, misleading her like this.

"I am." Said Martha, taking a step back.

"Then, haven't you ever heard of hair dye?"

"Martha, lovely to see you again." Said Owen, walking towards her almost smiling.

"Should have known you two would know each other." Said Rose under her breath

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Martha with her arms crossed.

"Exactly what I said." Answered Rose, trying to finish her work as quickly as possible. Rose didn't like the woman. The first thing she'd said to her was a strange mention of her past. Rose had changed, she hadn't wanted to but she did. And whether Martha had wanted to or not, she had pointed it out.

"So, Martha, what can we do for you?" asked Gwen politely.

"Jack called me here, told me she was back." Martha stared at Rose's back.

"Ha, I see, Jack!" Gwen yelled at her boss, "that is it I have had enough!! Explain it, and explain it now!" Gwen was serious; even though Jack couldn't die, he was afraid.

Until Rose shouted loudly.

"I fixed it!"

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

"So, he's all human on the outside?" asked Gwen, team Torchwood and the past companion brigade once again in the conference room. Jack really was beginning to hate the place.

"Apart from two hearts I think he is." Nodded Rose.

"Just two hearts? Not two of anything else?" smirked Owen, writing on his clipboard.

"I…don't know… don't think so?" the question caught Rose off guard.

"You've never asked?" frowned Jack, in amusement.

"Yeah, because every girl wants to have _that_ conversation with her best mate." Laughed Rose. She could just imagine him rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, no matter what the answer, if she ever had enough nerve to ask.

"But, you really don't know if he's…got two of anything else?" Martha meant it from a Earth Doctor's point f view, but Rose didn't see it that way. Her reply struck Martha deep.

"Do you?"

"Ok, next question, sorry if it's a bit personal, but we're just trying to get a picture." Gwen broke up the glaring match before it got worse. "Did you have a love affair with him?"

"No." answered Rose truthfully and clearly.

Martha laughed, short and sharp.

"I'm sorry, is there a problem Margaret?" Snapped Rose, staring at her from across the room.

"It's Martha!" she snapped back, leaning forward and trying to intimidate the other woman. "An' no, it's just…we all know you did, you were all he talked about." She waved her right arm in the air briefly. "'Rose did this' and 'Rose did that', sometimes it would be like it was easier for him to just imagine I was you so he could keep breathing."

She hoped the last part sounded less bitter than she felt.

"Ok, now I know you're talking out of your arse." Rose started to get up, Martha did the same.

"How do you know?"

"There are three things he doesn't talk about: the dead, his past and his feelings. I would fall under the 'past' category, so, like other 'past' companions, he just wouldn't talk about me." Why was she here? Rose knew she was passing, but…Martha Jones was proof.

"Well, he didn't think about you as his past. You were very much his here and now. And his future." Martha crossed her arms. The conversation was getting more biting and cold with each words thrown out.

"Meaning?" Rose didn't understand… she should have had to explain to Martha that she had once travelled with the man in the blue box, and shake hands and tell her, her name. Not explain their relationship.

"Rose, trust me…he talked about you…a lot." Jack said quietly from behind her; Rose turned round.

"He didn't talk about you. That's why I thought you were dead. He said you were rebuilding Earth, but…" she let the sentence hang.

"Not like him to use euphemisms." Jack snorted bitterly.

"No, but it is like him to lie to me."

"Thought you were his golden girl?" said Martha sharply, not quite believing that Rose didn't know Jack was left behind.

"Meaning?" Rose turned around and looked at Martha.

"Exactly what I said."

"What is regeneration like?" asked Gwen suddenly, forcing both Rose and Martha to remember where they were and sit down. "That's why no one knows what he looks like. What's it like."

An uneasy silence filled the squashed room.

"It's like…ice-cream." Rose regretted saying it almost instantly, at the patronising look Martha gave her but she carried on regardless.

"Ice-cream is ice-cream whatever happens it will always be ice-cream. But you get different flavours. There's chocolate ice-cream, strawberry, chocolate…mint. The Doctor is ice-cream. Whatever happens he will always be the Doctor, ice-cream is ice-cream whatever the flavour. It's just after the regeneration the Doctor has changed, so now he's chocolate, or he's the Doctor in mint or Strawberry." Rose tried to understand what she had just said and gave a confused smile.

"The Doctors in caramel?" Jack flirted.

"He's still the Doctor whatever." Sarah agreed.

"Do you miss him? The old Doctor, the old flavour?" asked Tosh, speaking for the first time.

"Everyday." Murmured Rose, looking at her feet.

"So if you could somehow get his other self back, his 'past self', would you do it?" asked Martha, suddenly worried.

"I don't know, there isn't a way." _How could she ask that?_

"But if you could?" Martha insisted.

"Ok!" Jack clapped his hands, stepping away from the corner behind Rose where he had been lurking. "I think this might be easier if we had a break, don't you?"

Martha and Rose were standing once more face to face, glaring at each other.

"I can't." Said Rose, her quiet voice cold echoing through the room.

"So, you've tried?" asked Martha determined to get an answer.

"Everyone out now!" yelled Jack commandingly. "Martha, stay behind."

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

Rose sat on the invisible lift on top of Torchwood. It was strange, the Doctor seemed so far away yet, sitting here made him somehow seem closer then before. She had left her jacket at the Hub, not that she really needed it, the sun was out and making a joke of the term: pathetic fallacy.

"I'm sorry I called Martha. I thought she'd have his number. We tried it, it doesn't work." Jack sat down next to her, on the floor.

"Doesn't matter with my machine online now, he'll be here any minute…you wait and see." Rose sounded more confident then she felt. "I'm sorry I called Sarah Jane."

"Its ok, I kind of like her, she was only trying to save him, I'd do the same but…" Jack shrugged.

"Thought you two should meet; glad you did." Rose didn't want to talk about it, but she had a feeling Jack did. It was proven by his next statement.

"Yeah, but this whole thing…with Sarah and Martha. Sarah Jane says he's travelling with someone else now. But it all kind of makes you feel…."

Rose smiled coldly and replied.

"Replaceable."

"You're not though." He said sharply. "We might be…but you, Rose… I meant what I said. I've told Martha to cool her jets. What she said was out of order, but you didn't have to call her a Slitheen." He paused and smiled. "Even if she doesn't understand that you did."

"She's in love with him."

Jack cringed and started to lie, then thought better of it.

"No, she…how do you know that?"

"When I first met Sarah Jane, we had the same argument, near enough." Rose shrugged. She had been so young back then and so much had changed. "Came this close to hair pulling and name calling." Rose put her middle finger her thumb close together, so they were nearly touching "Was until, we started listing all the crazy stuff we'd seen trying to out do each other… that's how we realised how much we had in common…but it made me realise…we are the same."

"No."

Rose was different, if nothing else was different.

Rose turned to look at Jack for the first time since he'd sat down. Tears in her eyes.

"He's gonna leave me behind Jack."

There was a tremendous BANG and they rose to their feet, the tender moment destroyed.

Three lizard like creatures appeared through teleport in front of them. They wore iron armour, snarling as their long tongues flickered out.

Their swords raised to strike at Jack and Rose, in a threatening display.

They should have known better than to expect smooth sailings…

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD

"Something's happening up top!" yelled Owen after seeing a disturbance on the screen.

He ran out, followed by the rest of the team, Sarah Jane and Martha.

As they got to the invisible lift, a man in a blue suit stepped out of a strange blue box.

"Hello!" he said cheerily.

Jack and Rose were no where to be seen.

"I'm the Doctor."

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

(((((((((((((((((((((Mild spoiler 4th season Doctor Who))))))))))))))))))

Does anyone else want an alien from the 1st episode?


	6. Memories and Messages

**Chapter 6:** Memories and Messages.

_Previously…_

"_Hello!" he said cheerily._

"_I'm the Doctor."_

_Jack and Rose were no where to be seen, though. _

_Now…_

"Ok, so… Rose walks out." Tosh pressed a button and the computer image showed a girl from a bird's eye view point, dressed in a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans. She walked at an unnaturally fast walking pace as Tosh speeded up the image.

"And then, Jack walks out after her."

She pressed the button again and speeded up the image even more.

"Ah ha, there you are!" cried the Doctor from the other side of Tosh, making her jump.

The first lizard creature raised its sword in a threatening manner as Jack leaped in front of Rose. As he pushed her back, another creature came at her from behind. Jack pulled out his pistol and was aiming for the other two before he realised that Rose was already taken, and the third creature had gone with a bang. He leaped forward in righteous anger and a piercing cry as the lizard's sword was plunged deep into his chest.

Jack's fist came into hard contact with the alien as it pulled out his sword.

Jack stumbled once, twice, then fell to the ground.

Dead.

A look was shared between the two remaining lizards before they each grabbed an arm on either side of Jack, both disappearing with a simultaneous BANG.

Ten seconds later, the TARDIS started to materialize.

There was a silence in the Hub.

"Jack's been kidnapped." Whispered Ianto quietly, almost in shock.

"Never mind 'I'm being kidnapped," Donna said looking at him with her eyebrows raised, "what about him being dead!"

Martha snorted.

"Are you going to do the honours, Doctor?" the glasses wearing geek scratched his neck, avoiding eye contact.

* * *

The Doctor was watching the footage once more, only paying half attention this time. Rose Tyler with brown hair. From the looks of things, she also wasn't wearing the same kind of jackets she used to either. What else had changed?

_What had happened to her?_

The sound had not been put on, in an attempt to protect the privacy of Rose and Jack. Tosh had speeded past the private talk they had shared when it had been first watched. It was becoming increasingly more difficult for the Doctor to resist hearing the conversation. The camera was too far away for him to 'accidentally' lip read and he had laughed when Donna had suggested that he put the sound on, instead of guessing what they were saying. He wasn't going to say she had been right. He'd rather have his sonic screwdriver go missing for an hour and then be returned by Jack, claiming to have found it just seconds ago and he had no idea who took it or why…again.

"What's that you're building?" asked Sarah Jane as she came and sat down next to the Doctor. He looked at the pieces of metal in his hands.

It looked like the part of a bicycle that the chain went around. Its cold steel laying flat on the palm of his hand as he attached wires and a small blue box to the centre. A single red light glowed.

"Something I hope I won't need."

"So, Jack and Rose…you used to travel with them?" Sarah leaned across him and caught his deep brown eyes hidden behind thick brown specs.

"Yep." He replied shortly. "Where's the brave and fearless Torchwood team gone, then? Isn't it a bit quite 'round here?" The Doctor asked for the first time, noticing that he, Sarah, Martha and Donna where alone in the Hub.

"Doctor!" Sarah rolled her eyes in disapproval. "They left about half an hour ago, something about a weevil sighting?"

"Oh…right." Nodded the Doctor then in an almost guilty voice added. "I knew that."

"Doctor…I heard Owen and Gwen talking before you came here, after Rose walked out and Jack followed." She took a deep breath and knew there was no easy way to say this. "I think there's something going on with Jack and Rose."

"Well yes, I suppose they would have spent a lot of time together when Jack built that machine." The Doctor gestured towards the finder device in the middle of the room.

"What?" Sarah looked over, "No, that's all Rose's. I don't think Jack helped." She turned around as she heard a noise to see Donna and Martha coming closer to take part in the conversation.

"Rose built this?" yelled the Doctor surprised, jumping to his feet and running over, "Really?" he looked the machine over with appreciative eyes.

"Doctor, I think Sarah Jane means that Jack and Rose might be a couple." Said Martha firmly. Inside she was screaming. A loud furious scream, sure to bust any eardrums and bring tears to your eyes, it was so powerful. It was one thing to take the Doctor's heart away, it was another to break it.

The Doctor snapped his head up, as he sonic screwdriver fell to his side.

"No!" he yelled on reflex, before turning his shout into a more dignified "No way." He looked at the three women. Two his past, one his present, each wearing almost identical looks of understanding. "Jack flirts with everybody and Rose…well they've known each other a long time." The Time Lord argued.

"Owen said they kissed when they met. Doctor, I'm sorry but-" Sarah tried to get the Doctor to see sense gently.

"They kissed!?" The Doctor felt his cheeks heat up and fought to keep calm. That resulted in the next word sounding slightly high pitched. "Really? No, you heard wrong."

"No, Doctor I didn't. They did kiss, they just saw each other and…I'm sorry." Sarah closed her eyes and tried to pretend she thought she had down the right thing.

"When they first saw each other?" the Doctor looked at Sarah, fighting to keep his face expressionless. "Like when they met?"

"Yeah?" replied Sarah Jane calmly, not sure what to say.

The Doctor laughed.

"Oh thank God, I mean I knew that's obviously, of course I did. I mean…yeah well, that was expected." He was babbling, grinning, giggling and even the occasionally snort at the solemn women's expense.

"I'm sorry?" yelled Donna, in a way that reminded the Doctor of Jackie Tyler…it was far from reassuring. "You're ex snogs your best mate and you say 'well that's to be expected'?" she swayed her shoulders and gapped at him unattractively. "I mean, I know you're an alien and all that but I though you had like…normal like male pride and stuff."

"He's got more than enough of that." Answered Martha with a raised eyebrow.

The Doctor sighed and bit back a comment about Rose really not being his ex…or his girlfriend. No matter how much he wanted her to be. His girlfriend, not his ex.

"Before Jack died, the first time, I mean the very first time, he kissed us. He knew he was going to die, he did die… Jack kissed us goodbye and well, they haven't seen each other since."

"It was a kiss hello?" Asked Martha, confused.

The Doctor replied, using a comment his previous self would be proud of.

"Basically yeah."

"Didn't look like a kiss hello to me, looked more like a 'hi there can I see your tonsils please' snog." Laughed Martha with a pointed look at the Doctor.

"You've seen the tape?" asked the Doctor suddenly.

"Yeah." Martha replied as she stopped laughing.

"Can I see it?"

* * *

Gwen ran as fast as she could, battery acid pumping through her veins. She was out of breath already… _God she shouldn't have had all that wine with Rhys last night, what was she thinking?_

"Owen, it's going to the bridge." She called out through her communicator as the Weevil she was chasing rounded the corner, just steps before her.

"Shit! Gwen, I'm nowhere near there." Yelled Owen back, the Weevil completely gone as Gwen arrived around at the intended escape area the creature had had in mind. The Darkness added to Gwen's fear, almost making her shake with adrenaline.

There was a viscous angry snarl from the other side of the bridge, swamped in darkness.

Then a howl.

The Weevil had caught something.

"Tosh!" Yelled Gwen, remembering that the woman had been stationed on the other side.

As Gwen got nearer to the bridge she stopped suddenly and the arm holding her gun fell lamely to her side.

The weevil was fighting with a large green lizard that stood on its hind quarters; the animal was a head taller than a man and had slits of yellow eyes.

The lizard gave a strangled cry, before a quick sharp snap sounded as the Weevil held it by its neck, the creature fell limp. And the Weevil turned to take off.

_BANG._

The Weevil was shot.

Gwen looked up to see Ianto holding his stun gun, Owen and Tosh running up behind him.

"Jesus!" Cried Owen. Glancing at the blood from the lizard creature, its sheer size and the sickening way the weevil held its prize still in its teeth, even through unconscious, made his stomach churn.

"What is that thing?" asked Tosh, bending down to get a better look.

"It's the thing that attacked Jack." Replied Gwen.

* * *

"Look what we found!" cried Owen in a cheerful voice, too much so to be genuine.

"Thanks, but I've just eaten." Murmured Doctor Martha Jones, looking at the corpse of the creature, bloody around its neck where the weevil had bitten into its neck, before snapping it. The blood looked human, as it pooled excessively onto the stark white sheets of the autopsy table. Owen set about untying the creature's amour that was held its chest by thick pieces of leather like thread. Gwen helped Ianto carry the unconscious weevil to the cells.

"Owen, if you give me that shield, I can start to examine the marking." Tosh put her thick purple I-mean-business glasses on, "I'm thinking they're old, maybe a cult, a religion-"

"I know you." Declared the Doctor suddenly, interrupting Tosh's commentary, looking at her before turning to look at Gwen. "I mean, I know you too, but I'm not going to even touch that one… no way, too many problems at this current point in time, some that will eventually kill us all." The last part he said grinning wildly before looking back at Tosh. "Well maybe not Jack but you….I know you."

"We've never met." Assured Tosh.

"It's the white coat what throws me." The Doctor carried on as if he hadn't heard her. "You'd be amazed at how many people I've met in white coats."

"Right," said Gwen taking control. "So now that we can get a better look at them, we can try and find out where they come from."

"What do you mean, try? We know where they come from." The Doctor looked confused.

"We do?"

The team were too shocked to be embarrassed that they had all said it at the same time.

"It's a Leer Lizzhard reptic." Said the Doctor, looking the huge lizard with a frown.

"A leer Lizard repo what?" asked Donna, her head tilted to one side and a dazed look on her face.

"Lizzhard, for short, not lizard." The Doctor explained, with an almost none fabricated look of annoyance. "Lizz" he sounded out. "Hard, hard on the end."

"A hard end?" smirked Owen, as he handed Tosh the amour.

The Doctor rolled his eyes but said nothing.

Tosh ran her hand around the smooth undercoating of the amour, steel plated shield.

"Hang on what's?" Murmured Tosh as she found a small square device, stuck on the inside of the plate. "It's some kind of memory card?"

"It's similar to a DVD." Explained the Doctor, taking it off her hand. "Normally, used to record messages on basic spaceships."

"Have you got anything to play it on?" asked Gwen.

* * *

The picture flickered on, then off. Once, twice, three times then stayed in focus.

The audience sat in the conference room, all watching a small screen, now showing Rose Tyler as its star.

Her dark brown eyes were naked from any eye make up. That was the thing that shocked the Doctor most. Her hair lighter, her skin darker, her face determined.

She started to talk.

"I don't really know how to tell you this but…I'm staying here. It's been fun but I think its time to leave. Even though I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Rose looked sincere, but her eyes darted back and forth, almost scared that the recording would switch off. That someone would switch it off.

"You took me from the gardens of Africa to the mountains of Japan. And I will never forget that. I guess I'm not saying goodbye to just you, am I? There must be five, six or even eight people there, or two. Without letting you have the choice of saving the world, but losing me. And I'd just like to say, that's quite right too."

Rose's gaze suddenly made contact with the camera.

"Have a fantastic life."

The camera switched off.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

Quick note to say:

For those of you who haven't read my new short story "Leaving Rose Tyler" please do and tell me what you think. And what you this of this chappy/ story while your at it.

Be warned I've heard that my short story is really kind of depressing.

But in a good way.

Please review!!


	7. Innuendo City

**Chapter 7**: Innuendo City

_Previously…_

_Rose's gaze suddenly made contact with the camera._

"_Have a fantastic life."_

_The camera switched off. _

_Now…_

The Doctor decided he didn't like silence.

Not just because he talked a lot and the whole concept of not speaking seemed rather alien to him. But because something bad was always followed by silence.

Most of the time it was because nobody really knew what to say.

The Doctor also decided that this was one of those times.

The people in the room filed out. The DVD deemed 'useless' so it lay still in the machine. Ianto murmured something about coffee, but it seemed to resound more loudly than a shout.

The Doctor was still sat down when Donna came to his side over an hour later. Still looking at the blank screen. He was missing something, but what? Rose's voice was too careful, her choice of words too precise. The look in her eyes as she threw the words he had said to her at the beach back at him and the words he should have said instead…

There was something in her eyes, something that seemed experienced and…old?

"Doctor?" Donna put her hand on his arm, making him jump. He had to look at her face just to know who was talking, the softness seemed to fit Rose more than it would have ever fit Donna.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah, me? I'm fine, I'm alright, I'm-" The Doctor shut up before his mouth betrayed him and made the statement any less believable. If possible.

"I'm sure she doesn't really want to stay there." Donna looked down at him encouragingly. "Besides, you'll see her again and she's got that Jack, yeah? I mean, that's gotta be helpful having a bloke around who won't die. And he did try and save her when they got attacked."

"Yeah." The Doctor nodded.

His silence was making Donna even more nervous. Whenever he got like this, he usually occupied himself by fixing the TARDIS. But after the stories she'd heard from Sarah Jane she was hardly going to suggest he go back there on his own.

"Toshsiko wants you to have a look at that amour, I said I'd ask."

"What?" asked the Doctor, looking up once more.

"The markings on the amour?" prodded Donna.

"Yeah, sure, right." The Doctor left the room with once last glace at the black screen.

The Doctor examined the strange series of markings in some ancient forbidden language. The two interlocking triangles in the middle of the body amour meant 'protect'. The Doctor realised just how much trouble he was in and wondered if there had ever been an end to one of his plans that didn't include trouble.

"What is it then, Doctor?" asked Martha, looking at him with a deep frown upon her brow. The bright white lab coat reminded him of when they had met.

"An inscription, or more likely a prayer popular in the North Easteris region." He replied without looking up, his glasses balanced on his nose.

"A prayer? You mean like a religion?" asked Gwen.

"Yep." The Doctor enjoyed popping the word for a second or two.

"Aliens have religion?" asked Tosh, pleased her ideas and research hadn't left her to a dead end, but a real solid fact.

"Some do." The Doctor spoke like he was more interested in the metal he was holding to the light, until the next question Martha asked him threw him off more than slightly.

"Well, you're an alien, Doctor, what do you believe in?"

Sometimes silence was what followed bad news and sudden realisations of bad news.

Luckily, this wasn't one of those times.

"Rose." He breathed, remembering suddenly why he was here. Not only in Cardiff, or even in Tochwood, but alive. "I believe in Rose."

* * *

The DVD played for the umpteenth time.

The Doctor was frantically writing down every word Rose said on a big white board Ianto had found for him, using a green marker.

"So, you really are the expert then? The boyfriend?" asked Owen looking in from the door.

"I'm sorry?" said the Doctor, not even turning around.

"You the Doctor? The one Rose and Jack are so desperately trying to get a hold of." Was it the Doctor's imagination or did this strange little human sounded almost protective?

"Yeah, I guess I am." The Doctor agreed, thinking it over. "And Rose isn't my girlfriend!" he added as an after thought.

"No?" asked Owen, genuinely surprised. "What was she then? Family member or friend, I've heard the term companion around here a lot, like a pet?"

The Doctor really didn't like this little human.

He reminded him of Mickey, when they first met. Though Rose hadn't been at Torchwood for that long, so why was the team acting like they were just waiting to pounce and stop him from taking her away, he wondered.

"No! Rose was, she was different, she was….she was my partner." Was that really the right word? He rolled it around in his head for a while.

"In which sense?"

The Doctor really, really didn't like this little human.

He turned from the board suddenly, to glare at Doctor Harper.

"In the sense that I would have died a slow and painful death several times over without her. She was my partner, that's it." He turned back to the board and began rubbing out some of the words, covering it, murmuring to himself, "I can see why Jack likes it here now. _Innuendo City_."

Then a bit louder he said,

"Call everyone in here. I'm ready."

* * *

"Right." Said the Doctor, clapping his hands in front of the board, when they were all in the room. "It's a code. My lovely, lovely Rose Tyler has used the _'we're Ok, don't come and save us_' message, and turned it into a _'here we are, we're in a spot of bother, come and get us out' _message without the Lizzhards seeing."

"I'm sure Jack helped." Put Gwen in loyally.

"Really? I'm not." Said the Doctor in an excited mischievous voice. He gestured to the words on the board, reading them off and explaining them as he went, in a different order from the ones Rose had said them in, and only saying a few choice words.

"_I wouldn't have missed it for the world"_

Started the Doctor. "Last time she said that she was at gun point… well, near enough. Means she's not free to speak. They must have made her do this."

"_Gardens of Africa to the mountains of Japan." _

"Anyone know what that is?" he asked, almost hoping someone would put up their hand and really make him feel like a teacher. Rose would.

"Is it hit me with your rhythm stick?" asked Sarah Jane utterly confused.

"Yep!" cried the Doctor, pleased. She really should have raised her hand, though. "_'It's good to be a lunatic, hit me with your rhythm stick!'" _He sang loudly and out of tune. "We were going to an Ian Durry and the Blockheads concert once, but I got the time wrong. We ended up in the eighteen hundreds, means we know what century they were taken to."

"And the last one…" the Doctor trailed off.

"Is just a bunch of numbers." Owen completed, earning himself a disgruntled look from the rest of the group. Except the Doctor.

"Right, a bunch of numbers. Know what else a bunch of numbers can be? A bunch of coordinates."

The Doctor was grinning in a way that either suggested he had won a lot of money on the lottery or, was someone you didn't want to meet in a dark alley.

"This is Rose and Jack, right?" he asked rhetorically. "You think they just sat there as this ship's short range transport beam, by the way very basic, took them away? No! They would have tried to get off. A good way of doing that would have been getting to the controls. Seeing where they were distended for and then… I don't know gotten caught? Forced to make this?"

"So where are they distended for?" asked Ianto, so distracted he wasn't even offering coffee, and hadn't for over an hour.

"No idea." Replied the Doctor still grinning. "But my guess is somewhere that looks like the "19th century." The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, especially pleased with himself. "Me and Donna are going to go and save them."

"And me." Said the woman sat at the back.

"What?" The Doctor was caught off guard, so much so that he stopped grinning.

"I'm coming with you." He looked at the woman who had said it, surprised.

"You can't." he answered automatically.

"Yes, I can." Answered Gwen, no room for argument "Martha's staying here to do the post mortem with Owen on the giant lizard thing. So you've got a spare place."

"Yes... but… why do you want to go anyway?" the Doctor didn't understand, why Gwen?

"Someone's got to make sure you go back for Jack." Gwen smiled, a poor attempt to make the comment less biting, and miss trusting. She failed.

"Ah, so you want to go, so you can save Jack? You think I won't?" the Doctor lifted his eyebrows in defiance.

"I'm keeping him safe. He is my boss, besides the last time you showed up he went missing for months." Gwen smiled at the end of her sentence once more, this time warmer. "And how often do you get to go in a space and time ship anyway?"

"Right. OK, that's…Ok. Sarah Jane, what about you?" asked the Doctor, turning to the older looking woman.

"Me? No, thank you Doctor, it's not everyday you get an unrestricted tour around Torchwood; I'll keep Martha company." Sarah followed Gwen's example of a false smile. The false smile virus was spreading around Torchwood these days.

"Right…that's…Right."

The Doctor smiled.

* * *

Gwen had met a lot of companions in the last few days. They had all told her, or tried to tell her, how fantastic the TARDIS really was.

They failed.

What they had said didn't come close to how truly indiscernibly brilliant it really was.

"Here we are. England, Somewhere in the North…1802." The Doctor opened the TARDIS, and walked out into a field, surrounded by a thick wood. A large house made out by cream limestone stood, its height impressive and imposing not far behind.

"1802, really! Just like that I'm now back in time." Gwen couldn't help but stare, back in time. No painful drug, or fitness expected standard before hand, like in all the films.

"Well…" rolled the Doctor, enjoying the impressed face while it lasted, Donna's had quickly evaporated. Rose seemed to have been the only one to keep it throughout their time together. Her enthusiasm was something he would never forget. He prayed she hadn't lost that either. "What's back in time for you, won't be for the people who live here, so it's all a matter of opinion really."

"Doc!!"

The Doctor turned around to see Captain Jack Harkness, with sideburns and a cravat running towards him...not being chased?

"Jack! Hello" The Time Lord smiled at the ex Time agent.

"Oh Doc, thank God you're here." Jack stopped running when he got to the Doctor and saw Gwen for the first time, but didn't say anything. It was a sad day when Captain Jack thought it wasn't the time for flirting.

"Of course I am, Jack. Don't be ridicules, it wasn't too hard, what with those helpful coordinates you and Rose gave me." The Time Lord didn't seem to understand the urgency.

"Doc, we have a problem." Said Jack, tearing his eyes away from Gwen.

"Just the one?" Joked the other man.

"It's Rose."

The Doctor stopped joking and in a flash became frantic.

"What about Rose? Jack, tell me what about Rose!" he moved forward as if to grab Jack before just pulling himself back in time, fighting to stay in control of his emotions.

"She has no idea who you are."

* * *

It had been a pleasant morning for Rose Tyler.

She had woken early as was the fashion in such parts of Britain. She had her breakfast with Jack, a rare occurrence as he said it made him feel "uncomfortable".

Such strange words, Rose had noted at the time, to use in relation to spending time with one's sister. Really, her and Jack had lived together since infancy. It troubled her why her presence should be troubling her brother now.

They had been friends ever since her mother and his father had been married. Now they had both passed on but Jack and Rose still had each other. She remembered it very clearly, he said he would always be there and that she was worth fighting for.

This, however, did little to explain his reaction last week when she claimed she wanted to be let out into polite society, in order to find a husband. Jack had, rather rudely spat out the tea he had been drinking, started to choke and then, after several attempts of asking "why" (the single word, not in a sentence), he had left the room.

Really, it wasn't uncommon for a young woman of twenty three years to require a chance of meeting young eligible gentlemen. When she had told him so later, he had been near tears.

He didn't tell her why.

After breakfast, Rose was told that they were going to have some guests for supper. An old respectable family to dine with them, later that evening. A Mother, a Father and Two sons. They lived across on the other side of the wood, the Dawson family. Rose had seen the house as she walked through the woods many times growing up, but she had never been inside.

The afternoon passed quickly for Rose, choosing a dress what best complemented both her figure and her eyes.

It was passing dawn when her brother knocked on her door and informed her that another family was joining them for dinner as well as the Dawsons.

The Smiths.


	8. Plum Tree Manor House

**Chapter 8: **Plum Tree Manor House

"What the Hell do you mean she doesn't know who I am!"

Outside of the house, the Doctor shoved both of his hands brutally into his hair, pulling at it from both sides in frustration and disbelief.

Jack tried to help out but his efforts only seemed to make things worse.

"It's confusing. Doc, I tried, believe me." Glancing once more at Gwen, Jack began his tale. "First few days you were all she talked about. Then after about a week she started loosing track of what she was saying half way through a sentence. Around the same time she began using the right knife to cut cheese and had all these worries about proper manners or something…

Then it, well, it just continued getting worse until she barely talked about you at all." He seemed extremely saddened by the slow change in Rose; a change he had been forced to watch, powerless to stop it.

"About a week ago I mentioned your name, reminded her we had to find you. And she asked if I was ill. Doc…we have a cook and a maid or two. And the cover story Rose and I came up with, when we got here? Now it's like she's living it! The cover story ceased being a story, it's her life; the only one she knows. She's becoming this primed and proper 19th century, English Lady." Jack's voice became frantic.

"Its ok, its fine I can work with that." The Doctor started to pace, his hands still in his hair. "How did you get here?" he said finally looking over at Jack.

"After we got kidnapped we were sent to the control room where the recording equipment was, we made the message after I had a quick glance at the controls see where we were heading. At sword point course couldn't do anything. Then we were injected with something. Blacked out." Jack sighed as he remembered the sharp, painful needle in his neck, forced to watch it as it happened to Rose first. "Next thing either of us know, we're in this house on our own in some other clothes. No guards or anything, but then Rose starts losing her memories."

The Doctor had to help! He had to know how it had all gone wrong and fix it!

"And I have no idea what to do."

Jack finished, looking at the distraught man before him.

* * *

Rose tied the last buckle on her light blue shoes and winced. Fit to measure and picked up just last week, they were supposed to feel like gloves. Yet they rubbed the heels of her feet in a most terrible manner. Made to measure specific feet, like all shoes, yet this particular pair didn't seem to have been made for Rose.

_How strange_, she remarked to herself.

She could remember having them fitted. A word with the shoe maker might be in order.

Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to change, so they would have to do. Tossing a dark over hanging strand of hair behind her shoulder, Rose glanced at herself in the tall mirror. Her long brown hair was tied at the back to make a cascade of loss curls, setting the simple pale blue dress apart in an innocent, seemingly effortless way.

Rose didn't think herself to be overly pretty, but she knew that she had to make the most of herself in life. Her mother had often told her that if she wanted to have a good and kind husband, a true gentleman who would never hurt her, she should…look at the blokes who liked other men?

No, that didn't seem right. It didn't sound like anything her mother would have said…yet she could remember her mother saying it.

Rose shut her eyes tight to avoid thinking about such complicated matters that would give her a headache, no doubt.

Playing with her necklace, she left the bedroom and closed the door.

Rose walked confidently down the long thin winding corridor, merely a short walk to the foyer and front door, where she would meet the guests. The wood of the soles of her delicate shoes clicked against the white marble of the polished floors. The pale walls were darkening as the sun filtering from outside started to set.

The light in the corridor was dimming.

Rose closed her eyes.

_The white wall stood forbidding. _

"_Take me back!" _

That was her voice, her own voice, but how? She'd never say anything like that.

"_Take me back!" _

_The blood on her hands as the wall fell down. The sledgehammer too heavy for her arms. She was holding it wrong, too consumed by grief and anger. She cared not, though; another swing at the wall. _

_Her right wrist couldn't handle the pressure._

_The last main structure of the wall came down._

_Her wrist snapped._

Her eyes suddenly open, Rose realised she had been frozen to the spot, while those confusing images had assaulted her senses. Her right hand twinged, as she remembered the day dream. Quickly composing herself, she carried on walking, putting those strange flashes out of her mind.

* * *

"Good Evening." The man's pipe was slowly releasing thick black smoke into the air and the Doctor was tempted to cough loudly in his face. "Arnold Dawson's the name. I own a rather large portion of the coal mines. You've probably heard of my company? Dawson and Son? It's a family business, you know."

"Is that right?" asked the Doctor, obviously in a rhetorical manner. Nodding and trying to show at least a small amount of interest in whatever the pompous balding squat man was boasting on about. The Doctors eyes darted around, trying to spot the lady of the house.

"Forgive me…Doctor." The man almost sneered the last word, finally warranting the Doctors attention. "Is this your wife?"

"What!" The Doctor turned to where the man was looking and forced himself not to flinch at what he knew the reaction would be. The woman in the green dress's eyes lit up in horror.

"No! Me and the Doctor… we aren't-" Donna started, indignant to be mistaken as his mate once again, but the Doctor was quick to interrupt.

"She's my sister. Mr Dawson, this is my sister Donna Noble." The Doctor nodded his head to one side and Donna produced a small jolt that might have been mistaken for a small curtsy.

"Widow, very sad. Yes…my sister." The Doctor suddenly realised he should stop referring Donna as his sister unless the idea became hard to get rid of and came back to haunt him later. "And this is my ward." Said the Doctor suddenly. "Gwyneth Cooper."

Gwen turned to look at the Doctor, surprise evident on her face. Her dark hair had been piled high above her head, that and the pink dress she had been forced to wear, made her shift uncomfortably and self-consciously.

"How did you know that was my full name? Only my Gran ever calls me that." She whispered.

"Physic." The Doctor tapped his nose, looking at her knowingly.

Jack broke the moment, as he noticed a figure at the door. The Doctor looked up as well, suddenly stunned.

"And this is my sister Rose Tyler."

* * *

Donna Noble didn't like the eighteen hundreds.

The three families sat in silence, giving Donna a moment to look at the family directly opposite her.

The youngest of the Dawson boys, Donna guessed to be about twelve. And primed with proper table manners to the extent that if he so much as twitched out of place his mother would try to inconspicuously nip him under the table. The third time this happened, an incident involving a spoonful of tomato spoon, a loud sneeze and a very nervous Junior Dawson, the Doctor intervened.

"So, Mr Dawson, hope you don't find it rude of me to ask. But how much do you earn from these mines?"

The conversation increased from there.

An important, and interesting topic for Mr Dawson, and his shrill thin lipped tooth pick style wife. For the Smiths, however, it was the start of a slow and painful death sentence.

Dying of boredom was something Donna never thought possible, when travelling with the Doctor. But, the 19th century seemed to prove otherwise.

Still, it wasn't as bad for Donna, as it seemed to be for Gwen.

The eldest Dawson boy, just eighteen, tried, continuously, to put his hand on Gwen's leg as she sat the left of him. She tried once, maybe twice to pull his hand away, before giving up and 'accidentally' pouring her white wine onto his lap.

Rose seemed to have the best seating neighbour.

The man looked to be about thirty, maybe closer to thirty five. Dressed in a strange, somewhat modern sort of suit, Rose could only assume must be the current fashion in London. He had mentioned spending a lot of time there. He had also, she remembered, given her a rather pointed look, when saying it.

She had no idea why.

"So, Miss Tyler." Said the man, rather suddenly. He must have caught her looking at him from the corner of her eye.

Mr Dawson raised his furry eyebrow at the Doctor's interruption. The eyebrow holding more hair then the top of his balding head made quite a humorous scene and the Doctor was tempted to make a comment to Rose.

He didn't.

"How long have you and my good friend Mister Harkness been living here?" he turned his body to look at her. Kind, but anticipating eyes, gazed deeply into hers, as though waiting for her to perform an amusing trick he would be disappointed if she didn't.

"Since I was just a child. My mother married Jack's father when he was thirteen and I just eight. This is the family manner. Jack and I have lived at Plum Tree together ever since they passed away." Rose answered evenly, and practised. She was hurt as the Doctors lips turned upwards in displeasure.

"Yes, well. That was expected." He said almost to himself.

The Doctor made no other remarks to her, instead asking questions to Jack about how many members of staff he had, and such. His gaze remained fixed on Rose, though, as if examining every nuance of her person. That innerved the girl to no end.

She worked hard to ignore him.

Mr Dawson senior ignored the Doctor for the rest of dinner as well, deciding that it would be in Jack's best interest to learn how much money he made, instead.

* * *

After dinner the men, Jack, The Doctor, Mr Dawson and his two sons, retired to the smoking room. The women were left to their sewing.

Rose sat on the sofa, her legs crossed at her ankles, her pink flowered needle work laid gently upon her lap. Rose watched silently as the other women conversed sipping her wine she had poured herself, after she had made the other women tea.

"My apologies, Miss Noble, I still don't seem to understand. Your name is different to your brother's, why is that?" The woman with the steely cold blue eyes looked at Donna with her pinched nose upturned.

"I was married." Donna said, thinking fast on the story the Doctor had made up. "But he died." Donna placed her cup of tea back on the saucer and smiled at Mrs Dawson.

Mrs Dawson sipped her own tea through closed lips.

"I see."

That line alone made Gwen turn around from where she had stood looking out the large window. Her view of the Yorkshire country side obstructed by the now thick darkness.

"Such a shame." Continued Dawson. "Have you any children?"

"No." answered Donna with a raised eyebrow.

"Really!" cried the woman, placing her tea back on the saucer with a clatter, her needle work lifeless on her knee "Oh dear, and I suppose at your age it does seem unlikely you are ever to conceive any."

"You what?!" asked Donna, rising to her feet and glaring at the older woman with greying blonde hair with fire in her eyes. "At my age?!"

Rose turned to look at Donna, when she all but plopped down to her, making the sofa shift. She hadn't been listening to the conversation, and now was regretting such decision.

Still attempting to sew, but paying no attention to it, she stabbed herself with the needle.

"Ahwo!" Rose cried softy, causing the women in the room to glance her way. The glaring spite-filled contest between the older looking woman and the red head was quickly forgotten. Rose got to feet and walked across the room. She stood next to the door, a small support wall, hiding it from view of the main lounge.

Rose looked at her middle finger on her left hand. A drop of pure crimson blood dripped from her finger. Her needle work still in her grasped hand fell to the floor.

"_ROSE!" _

_That was her Mum screaming for help as they came. _

_The metal men. _

_Yet another explosion crashed through the large house, the foundations shuddering. _

_Rose took a deep breath, and felt her mouth fill with blood. _

_Rose Tyler lay motionless on the floor of the Tyler estate. _

A Bang drew her from her musings.

Something scratched along the hard marble floor, far away in another room yet not far enough away to escape notice.

Claws on a hard, cold floor.

The clear glass stone of Rose's necklace glowed gold, and she knew.

They were here.

* * *

Hey,

sorry it's taken so long but I've been a bit ill and, over the next two weeks I've got most of my A level exams.

"Have you studied?"

I hear you cry. No but I intend to pass with style, squeezing the last bit of revision in the night before.

Constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

Thank you.


	9. The Iron Sword

**Chapter 9: **The Iron Sword

_Previously…_

_The clear glass stone of Rose's necklace glowed gold, and she knew._

_They were here. _

_Now…_

_Bare feet walked on the cold wet grass. _

_Sirens screamed behind her, and it was Hell on Earth. _

_The fire was the only dominate light source that night. _

_And Rose didn't want to be here anymore._

_What would be the point?_

_There's no one left._

"Rose, are you ok?" The Lady of the house swayed a little, suddenly aware of where she was. Gwen's kind and concerned voice dragged her back to focus.

"No." Said Rose clearly.

"We need to get out."

* * *

The Nanny came to collect the children half an hour after dinner. She was a large women, the opposite of Mrs Dawson, had red rosy cheeks and a face without a single ounce of kindness.

Mrs Dawson, already away in the Ladies room, had left Mr Dawson to see their children onto the closed carriage.

As it pulled up, Mr Harkness was introduced to the Nanny.

"I never knew a family lived er'." She replied gruffly, out of ear shot of Mr Harkness. The Time Lord's keen sense of hearing picked it up with ease.

"Noise only started a week ago. That is to be sure."

The Doctor caught a shadow on the stairs out of the corner of his eye.

"Right then. Back to the smoking room I suppose." Said Mr Dawson commandingly.

"You know what? Not me, thanks, it's getting kind of late." The Doctor made to go across the corridor, away from the front double doors. "I'll just go and alert the ladies. Sure you don't want to go too, Mr Dawson? Dark night and all that, don't fancy walking through those woods on your own do you?"

"Doctor Smith." Began the other man.

"Just the Doctor, thank you." Interrupted the man currently scanning for intergalactic space dust on the side of the door to the lounge with his sonic screwdriver. His glasses were shoved onto the tip of his nose and he seemed to be focused on the door to be paying any attention to the snobbish man.

"Am I to understand that you are attempting to ask me to leave these-" his obnoxious, paranoid argument was cut short by the Doctors violent,

"Shhh!"

He pulled the glasses off his nose and placed them back into his front pocket.

Dawson didn't hear it until he was quiet, the light sharp scraping sound. Not unlike the clink of an amour. It was getting louder and louder, making the strange rhythm clearer and clearer, as the shadow slowly made its way along the stairs.

The winding staircase, twisted around the side of the wall.

Jack was about to call out to ask why the pompous man with too much money had stopped talking. He couldn't see the oncoming shadow.

But the Doctor could.

No time to waste, the Time Lord ran, yelling for the man to go, but he just froze him horror. The last foot hit the bottom of the stone stairs and the gas lamp illuminated the hideous features of the monster.

The Lizzhard, taller than any man, its dark green scales looking more like mould against its glowing red eyes, couldn't be described as anything else but a monster by a 19th century limited mind.. Dawson was so close, he could feel the warm sweet breath of the fiend on his over bulging neck; see the sickeningly yellow razor sharp teeth; and feel the air rush past, before the sword even made contact with his flesh.

The Doctor grabbed hold of the man's arms ready to pull him away, but was too late. The iron sword hacked viciously into Dawson's left shoulder, causing him to plunge to the floor. And in doing so, the oversized man took the Doctor with him.

The iron sword moved again, this time making the Doctor its intended target. Raised high above the creatures head, the sword drove down. Time seemed to go in slow motion.

Acting fast, Jack grabbed hold of the Doctor, pulling him up with his arms under the other man's armpits and dragging him to his feet. But not before red trainers had been on the floor a little too long.

The Doctor, now to his feet, was dragged through the lounge door and into the seating area. He tried to walk on his own, waving Jack away, but couldn't. He winced and almost toppled to the floor.

Jack began to barricade the door of the lounge, using the bookcase on the side opposite the grand piano. It looked sturdy, but wouldn't hold the alien out for too long.

The Doctor looked down at his right leg and saw blood flow from his knee down, already making a crimson pool on the floor.

* * *

"Where? Why?" Gwen couldn't decide which question to ask first, she reached out and took the blonde woman's hand, taking notice of how pale she looked.

"The Dinning Room. Doors at both ends, back up exit if we need it, and the doors are heavy, they'll shut tight." Rose started to list back up plans and strategies. A transformation from the frightened woman, who stood there moments before. She was in charge. "We can hide. We have to hide."

"Hide?" asked Donna, coming to stand next to Gwen. Mrs Dawson followed, a disapproving frown on her face, while her hand bag was tightly clasped in her black laced hands.

"Hide from what?" She was between frightened and indignant.

_CRASH!_

Gwen's question was answered. The window she had been looking out of just minutes before stood in pieces and scaly green claws grabbed hold of the now glass free window frame.

The creature was coming in.

Mrs Dawson screamed, high pitched and deafening.

That noise seemed to bring the other women out of their shock; they turned the corner and flung open the heavy hard mahogany door. They managed to leave the room just as the feet of the creature hit the floor with a solid sounding thud.

Another creature climbed in through the window after it.

* * *

The women ran, Donna having to pull Mrs Dawson along with her; the woman shook with terror, tears streaming down her face. The proud and almighty woman was a complete wreck, desperate screams escaping her contorted lips.

Plum Tree Manner was the largest house in the area. The only house in the area other then the Dawsons, actually, and that was a good ten miles away. Thick woods covered the surrounding area. No one else was there to help.

Or hear them.

The woman, soon out of breath, rounded a corner of the grand house and stopped. Hidden from the main corridor, Rose looked around. She couldn't see them, yet.

Gwen tried to sooth Mrs Dawson, now shaking and fumbling with her hand bag.

Turing back to look at the older looking woman, Rose asked "Got any gin?"

What Mrs Dawson pulled out of her hand bag was not a bottle of gin.

"Where the hell did you get that!" Donna yelled, struggling to keep her voice down. Gwen just stared at the woman in wordless shock.

"My husband." Mrs Dawson murmured distractedly.

She pointed the revolver with a shaking hand.

Rose eyed her wearily, she looked around the wall again. Three Lizzhards where now in view, their long thin tongues trying to niff out their prey.

"Right." Whispered Rose determinedly, turning back to face then. "The dinning room is straight through that main corridor. You'll come in through the servant's entrance."

Rose then gabbed the gun from Mrs Dawsons lose and trembling grip.

"I know it, we can get out through the lounge on the other side." Said Donna excitedly. "The front doors not too far away."

"You really wanna run about in the dark woods chased by them things?" yelled Rose, as she rounded the corner, now in full view of the three Lizzhards.

"RUN!" she yelled pointing the revolver, the confused three looked back.

"NOW!"

Rose looked on.

The Lizzhards came closer, unafraid of the human's unless weapon. Their amour would protect them.

The aliens had never seemed more out of place than in this once quite English Manner. The painting of ships hanging on the wall, covered in a thin layer of dust; the gas lamps a little too dark to show all the hideous features of the beasts; the chandelier, hanging splendidly above the heads of the monsters…

Rose fired the gun.

The metal chain of the chandelier broke, bringing the large contraption to crash down onto the Lizzhards' heads. It crushed their thin scaly bodies with a shattering whack.

One started to rise shakily to its feet, no quite defeated. As unstoppable as the army it stood for.

Rose turned and ran.

* * *

The Doctor used his tie to try and stop the blood flow. The material got quickly coated with the red sticky blood, as he tried to stand. But it would have to do. Jack ran to the back of the room, where the double doors of the dinning room stood.

"Come on!" Jack yelled, shutting the doors as the Doctor squeezed past. Before the heavy doors came to a close, Jack saw the creature starting to come through the hacked down mahogany door of the lounge.

The Doctor locked the door with his screw driver. Jack once more barricaded the door. He had almost forgotten about the door at the opposite end until he saw it open out of the corner of his eye.

Jack turned back to the door he was currently trying to protect. Two heavy iron sword swipes made a rough uneven square through the wood. The sofas and coffee tables that had surrounded the large dinning table were stacked against it. The hacking noise stopped.

Stumbling slightly, the Doctor stood on one of the sofas next to the door. He looked out of the small hole,

"Yes?" he asked, although the Lizzhards did not seem to appreciate his rare display of politeness.

"We have no interest in you." Said one of the identical creatures at the door, its cold hissing voice enough to send shivers up anyone's shine. Anyone but the Doctor, that is. "You will leave."

"No, I don't think I will." The Doctor grinned, he was barricaded in after all.

"Then you will die, either by our sword or that of our great undefeated Goddess." The Doctor saw several Lizzhards behind the one currently speaking. To the left, one was covered in blood. Mr Dawsons' killer.

"A meeting with the Goddess… is that a warning or an invitation?" the Doctor spoke confidently, despite increasing numbers outside the door. There were now seven creatures on the other side.

"Same thing for you, isn't it?" the Doctor smiled as Jack's voice came cockily from behind him.

"You will listen." the expressionless features of the Lizzhard looked even more intimidating.

"I will not." He made a noise between a laugh and intake of breath.

"You have no choice."

"Oh really? I think I do, what are you going to do - lick me?" the Doctor licked his lips in a wild, obscene manner to illustrate his point.

Another Lizzhard drove his sword into the door. It thundered and shook violently.

"Doctor, I don't think that's on the agenda." Jack's panicked voice warned him to keep calm. The Doctor picked up a metal tea tray (that had been thrown next to the door in the rush and was now next to his foot) with one hand. With the other he grasped his sonic screwdriver.

"I'm going to stop this." Bellowed the Oncoming Storm "Save the world and then talk to Rose Tyler, and not you or anyone else is going to stop me!"

His voice still echoing around the enormous room, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to weld the metal tray over the hole in the door.

Wincing, his foot suddenly too painful to stand too much weight on, he stepped off the sofa.

He asked in a small voice.

"Do you think they believed me?"

It was then that the Doctor noticed that the other door had already been barricaded. Mrs Dawson, Gwen and Donna looked back at him speechless.

Rose smiled at him from the middle of the room next to the dinning table and said quietly,

"I believe you."


	10. The Undefeated Goddess

**Chapter 10: **The Undefeated Goddess

The gas lamps flicked, casting shadows upon their faces

The Doctor and Rose stared at each other from across the room.

All those years of waiting, of yearning, of simply trying to stay alive just to have this one moment, for both. All that anticipation seemed to be overshadowed by the Doctor and one single reckless decision that had caused a man's death.

All for his Rose.

The reminder that Mr Dawson's death was indeed his fault sent a shiver of mind numbing guilt through his tired body. Pain shot up from his leg, his body's answer to the new stain. Still, in that moment, it didn't matter. Rose was here. Just the way he remembered her. Just as beautiful, just as trusting. Always saying the right thing.

"Hello." Said the Doctor, not taking his eyes off Rose.

"Hello" she echoed, the same even voice as the Doctor, the edges of her mouth slowly curling.

And then Rose smiled. Really smiled.

The same look on her face after he asked her where she wanted to go next. Or when he took her to a place that made her so happy, she glowed. The tip of a pink tongue in-between her teeth, her lips wide. Even among all this death and danger, she was still smiling.

And that made him smile too.

Before they knew what was happening they were in each others arms. To anyone who didn't know them, the pair would seem completely mad. And, maybe they were. Was it possible to be mad with happiness?

"Hello." Murmured the Doctor, his lips in Rose's hair, holding her so tight he was sure she would get pins and needles from the waist up. He couldn't find it in him to care, though. She was here! In his arms! And he never wanted to let her go.

"Hello again." Said Rose, her voice muffled by the Doctor's shoulder. She made no move to pull away.

* * *

An undetermined amount of time later found the Doctor and Rose standing next to the closed doors. The banging against wood had finally stopped, but the Doctor doubted that meant anything good. Now there was just eerie silence. Rose chanced a glance over at Jack and Gwen from across the room, who held each other in such a way that almost border lined indecent. Rose smiled. That must have been what she and the Doctor had looked like.

"Well, she could have said they were a couple. Not just played the 'he's my boss' card." The Doctor spoke scornfully. Rose turned and saw he was still locking the doors. "I mean, come on! 'I care because he's my boss'... who'd believe that!"

"I think they're friends." Replied Rose, quietly scanning the room. "Besides, Torchwood Three's closed off, if you're not close to the people who you count on to keep you alive, then, you're as good as dead."

There was far too much experience in her voice for the Doctor to ignore. He turned, his task now complete, and looked at Rose's green tinted brown eyes.

"What about you?" he asked. Rose averted her eyes. Her gaze flited around the room until they came to rest upon the distraught Mrs Dawson, who had learnt only half an hour previously, how her husband had met his terrible end. Their children assured safety, however, seemed the only thing she could now think of. "What's it like working for Torchwood?" the Doctor forced his voice to sound lighter. "Defending the Earth? Fighting for peace and love?"

"More like chips, chocolate and Christmas." Rose smiled, still not looking at him. "I quit a few years back. Wasn't really my thing." She tried to put the same light heartenedness in her voice as he did.

She failed.

And in doing so, looked old.

So very old.

Her long fingernails scratched at the light blue material of her dress. Her long brown hair, long since taken down from her styled do, now sat just about her shoulders. No make up, no African braids to hold her hair, no modern Rose like normalities of any kind. She wasn't the same, as he had first thought. She was different, far too different from the teary girl he last saw on that cold beach.

Suddenly, the Doctor became very afraid.

"Rose." The Timelord whispered her name, gaze searching hers so intently she could feel his eyes demanding her attention.

However, once he looked in her deep brown eyes, the same way he had hundreds of times before, he was side stepped. Every memory of every moment when he was about to kiss her, but lost his nerve or wanted to tell her just how much she meant to him, and stumbled over his words came to the forefront of his overcrowded thoughts.

Once their eyes locked, the Doctor was reminded that, regardless of the little changed details, she was still Rose.

His mouth changed at the last minute what it was going to say, making the words come out stumbled and, not for the first time, rude.

"How old are you?" Rose's eyes widened, and he wasn't surprised, this question was new to him too.

"Twenty eight." She replied after a frown.

"Seven years?" he looked at her in dismay. All that time. Minutes, hours, days, months, years... closer to the end. Time lost; ultimetily less to have her by his side. Humans were out so very fast. But she had gone on, lived on, like he had told her to do. And seven years of her life were spent without him.

"Yeah, sure, what about you?" she hadn't thought this conversation was strange, just his shocked reaction.

"Three." Answered the Doctor, wishing it had been the same for her.

"Oh." His shock reached her. "Well…that's not fair." She had learnt so well during those years apart to laugh and make light of a situation, before the sheer pain of it ripped you apart and ate you from the inside out. Rose Tyler had learned to survive.

"Hey, guess what?" the Doctor changed the subject, a classic fail safe diversion tactic his new body seemed fond of. "We're in an old fashioned room with two exits, a weird monster outside looking for a female authority figure in the 1800s with a load of people in fancy dress who think we're barking mad." Cried the Doctor so loudly the people in the room (who did indeed think they were barking mad) turned to them, startled. Maybe it wasn't the best thing to make such light work of a situation such as this, where someone was already dead, but the serious conversation was making him feel uncomfortable. To cover this feeling, he had yelled the first thing that came into his head, really fast.

"I know!" cried Rose, catching on as quickly as ever. "Any minute now a werewolf's going to drop though the ceiling!"

They both seemed to find this hilarious. No one else laughed.

They stopped too, suddenly, and looked up at the ceiling.

No skylight.

Might as well make sure.

"Oi, you two!" bellowed Donna.

She stormed towards the pair, fire in her eyes. The past half hour had been spent listening to a terrified women's grieving tears, with nothing but a pat on the back and a 'there, there' to help her. Rose was right though, Mrs Dawson had been carrying a large flask of gin.

"I think we need to leave before we get stabbed to death by the lizard thing with the pointy swords. I don't want to die in eighteen whatever!" bellowed Donna, throwing her hands wildly in the air.

"You always did take me to the best places." Said Rose, shooting a sneak glance at the Doctor. This whole situation was too much like all those times before.

See a mystery, almost get killed, solve the mystery. So on, so forth.

Go back to the TARDIS and travel until you get a chance to repeat it all over again.

"Of course I did." The Doctor hadn't done that bad, had he?

"That morgue in Cardiff." Answered Rose, turning around fully to face him.

"We met Charles Dickens… lovely bloke." Donna had a feeling she was being ignored.

"That planet that was collapsing and everyone thought we were gonna get eaten by the Devil?" Rose blinked at him owlishly.

"That planet was orbiting a black hole, real anomaly that was, never gonna see that again." Donna raised her eyebrows at that statement, did the Doctor sound proud?

"The bunker in Utah?" Rose regretted saying that instantly.

"Oh ok, that was bad, but how was I supposed to know there was a Dalek in there? Besides you're the reason we got out alive."

"But I'm the reason it got out in the first place." The screams as they realise their guns were useless, the lives lost.

"No, never." The Doctor locked eyes with Rose, hiding his confusion as to when the conversation had gotten back to the life or death issues that seemed to haunt his life.

"Never ever?" Fire works, orange squash and ball bearings. Those two words that always come before something bad.

"No, just never. And I'm the one who locked you in." Regret; he had left her to die. Nineteen years old, still living at her mums and he nearly got her killed. He would never forgive himself for that.

"Yeah, if you didn't want to travel with me anymore, you could have just said." Rose grinned and put a lighter, almost twisted point of view, of that one and only day Rose had seen the Doctor point a gun he was intending to use.

"What and get slapped by your mum again?" the Doctor grinned back. "No thanks."

"Excuse me, but are you two quite finished?" Rose and the Doctor turned back sheepishly, neither admitting they had both forgotten about her.

"Donna, relax!" the Doctor put both his hands up in a submissive surrender. "I'll get us out of here, you wait and -OWWHHWA-!" the Doctor made a noise of pain as he took a step forward.

"Doctor!" yelled Rose.

"I'm fine, really, don't worry." The Doctor stood on one foot, raising his injured leg to hang in the air. "Really its ok, Rose." The Doctor stumbled to the dinning table and sat on one of the chairs. Rose helped him get there and pulled a chair to rest his leg on.

"Screwdriver." Demanded Rose after she had taken his now soaked tie off his leg and exposed it to the light of the room.

Surprisingly, the Doctor handed Rose his screwdriver without argument.

Rose turned the object from side to side for a minute then she must have found the setting she wanted, because next thing anyone knew, she was using the laser to hack away at the end of her dress.

The Doctor sat, open mouthed, as Rose took the top layer of her blue dress and turned it into shreads from the knee down. She did the same to the underskirt, until she had two piles of expensive pale blue bangeds. Thin white stockings, covered her legs, the blue high healed shoes looking out of place in the scandalous open, for once not covered by her large outfit.

Her dress riped and her hair a mess, Rose was starting to look familiar.

The scene had attracted attention. Now Donna, Jack, Gwen and Mrs Dawson, who sniffed loudly from her corner all stared at Rose and the Doctor. Doctor and patient, respectively.

"What do we know about these lizard things?" asked Gwen suddenly, Jack to her right. The question seemed more directed at him than the Doctor. The poor man was smiling dumbly at Rose playing nurse perched on another chair beside him.

"Well, the males have the babies." Said the Doctor, more to himself than anything.

"Like seahorses. I like it." Nodded Gwen. With the pregnancy horror stories surrounding women, it was a wonder the human race hadn't died out before the invention of alcohol.

"The egg is passed from the female to the male and then the male gives birth." Added Jack smiling, as he reminisced about past times. Times of which the others were thankful not to hear about. "What we have is a load of warrior males, none of them expecting."

"Right idea, if you ask me." Remarked Donna.

"I'm afraid I'll have to disagree, with humans it could get messy." The Doctor nodded in satisfaction as Rose leaned back, her work complete.

"And they want me." The Doctor snapped his head up suddenly to look at Rose. "For whatever reason, they want me. They went to kidnap me, not Jack." She looked the Doctor dead in the eye. "So why me?"

"What makes you think I'd know?" the Doctor replied coolly.

"You're not surprised they're here." Which was true, the Doctor had to admit. It was doubtful that they had brought Jack and Rose here just to leave them alone and forget about them, but he didn't think it was time for an argument. He had a feeling that would come later.

"Let me tell you a story." If she knew the facts, than it wouldn't be so bad. Right?

"I'm not in the mood for fairytales." Rose lifted an eyebrow at the Doctor.

"Who said this is fiction?"

"I'm sitting comfortably." It wasn't a conversation, it was a challenge.

"Then I'll begin." And he did.

* * *

_Many years ago, the Leer Lizzhard reptile were fighting an ancient war that would soon spread through all of the Easteris region. They fought for the honour and pride they believed it stood for, announcing themselves unique, with strong metal armours and weapons given to them by the Gods of War. They used swords and shields believing their power stood in the ancient methods of war, not in the technology. Disorganised, the oncoming army needed a leader who was as immortal and undefeated as their race vowed to be. _

_One day, an Issta came to their planet. The last of her kind, all but she had perished in a war that had spread throughout all of time. The Time War. _

_Free to walk between worlds but never to be part of them. The non corporeal being existed on the fear of other people and their sacrifices of blood and death. The Issta taught the Lizzhards about space and time travel. Brought them from their ancient war methods into a more threatening murderess undefeated race. Each world they defeated they claimed for their holy one, their Goddess._

_The religion insisted the leader be unforgiving and unstoppable. She was their undefeated God. _

_Yet still, she had no body, walking through the worlds, the dimensions and the universes, true. She was a legend and the last of her kind. All the power in the world, though, couldn't give her what she most desired: a body. A body worthy of her. If she was whole, a full solid being, she could raise herrace from its ashes and rule more than an infinite number of dimensions. _

_And then a man came, a man who, like her, was the last of his kind. He was the Oncoming Storm._

_He told her a story, the story of the BAD WOLF._

_The Goddess could travel between words, so why not get her back?_

_The last of her kind listened carefully. Inhabit her body just for a short time, bring her to this universe. To Issta, it would have been easy. No dangers of rips in time and space or fractures to the very heart of the universe. What would she receive in return?_

_The Oncoming Storm was given a deal, a choice._

_One week, the Issta would spend in the BAD WOLFs body._

_One whole week._

_In that time The BAD WOLF would be given a choice. _

_To go back to the other world to return and never see this universe again, the Issta back to living in a ghost like form as before. Or to stay in this universe. And let the Issta choose her own body. One that she saw worthy, take that body, take over that person inside. Whoever she chose and whoever she saw fit._

_For the BAD WOLF to stay in this world, someone's body had to be given in for it, whoever the Goddess saw worthy. _

_A sacrifice._

* * *

"So, it could be anyone? You were sentencing someone out there to death, with someone else living inside them for as long as this Issta lives?" Rose paced, fire in her eyes, even if her words sounded calm.

"Yes." The cold, simple remark she got in return was worth nothing, the Doctor's voice only fuelled her anger.

"And you think that's ok? Sacrificing someone's life just so I can get back, with someone like Cassandra living inside them like that, slowly killing them by crushing their brains." Rose stopped and looked hard at him, as the Doctor got steadily to his feet.

"Yes." One word spoken so coldly from someone so familiar; that was what made it sound so alien and cold.

"Why!?" bellowed Rose, losing her composure in a flash. "Why did you do this, go to all this trouble?" her fists clenched and rage was in her eyes, "What's the point?"

Sudden and an equally powerful result came from the Doctor. In a flash, he was by her side and yelled at her in a way he hadn't done since his last regeneration. Pink cheeks and eyes wide.

"The point!?" He was near hysterics. "The point! The point is Rose… I'm on my own, completely on my own, there is no one left, really no one, and even if there were, it would have to be someone like the Master, wouldn't it?.. I am so alone and the only time, the only time when I didn't feel so alone, so completely isolated…was when I was with you."

The door furthest away crashed open.

Furniture scattered uselessly to the sides, wood and metal so dangerously close.

Dust from shattered pottery and other priceless and broken objects filled the air. No doubt plaster from the sides of the walls crashed with it as the heavy double doors were thrown from its hinges.

The people in the room ducked in shock as the dust cleared.

The army of Lizzhards entered.

* * *

Sorry for the delay, coursework and other boring things.

But the good news is that tomorrow is my last day of college before the Summer!!

Write and sleep is my month and a half plan. (My parents aren't aware of this yet)

I'm also very sorry if I clogged your inbox with useless crap (you maybe pleased to know I clogged my own up in the process). Somebody pointed out something wrong with chapter 4, so I deleted it changed it then added it. But I couldn't get it back in, without deleting all the later chapters. After I had added them all back someone told me I had added chapter 4 twice and missed out chapter 5. To remedy this I had to repeat the whole thing again, yey!

Thanks to the people who emailed me to tell me I'd messed up, without you the whole thing would have been a waste as no one would be able to understand it.

Saturdays Doctor Who?

Hee!


	11. Lions, Tigers and Wolves

**Chapter 11**: Lions, Tigers and Wolves 

_Previously…_

_The people in the room ducked in shock as the dust cleared._

_The army of Lizhards entered._

_Now..._

The sun had been so hot earlier that day that the grass had almost burned with the heat.

The long green shards tickled Rose's nostrils as she took the first deep breath of consciousness, in what seemed like an eternity. She felt the dry earthy substance in-between her fingers, stroking it for a second or two before she recognised it, in her drearily state. Her eyes remained firmly closed.

The Doctor had thrown her an object, as the doors had burst open.

The Lizhards, the Goddess' dispels had broken down the doors, first from one side, then the other. The numbers huge in comparison to their meagre group.

An army.

Rose held the Doctor's strange alien object in her hand. Confusion made her face form a frown as her mind tried to work things out while still in a shocked heavy headed state. In the distance somewhere, she could hear shouting.

The object in her hand was a mad scientists dream. A red sphere glowed around the box of wires. Rose knew when the Doctor had given it to her that it hadn't looked like this. It was something to do with her. She made it glow. The steel chain surrounding the outer edge looked like it had come off her bike when she was twelve. A red light shone brightly, just the size of a light switch.

A voice suddenly broke through her haze; it was the Doctor.

"Let me go!" he grunted, held down, struggling against his capturers would be her first guess. As she opened her eyes for the first time she found it wasn't far from the truth. "It will help, you see. It's connected to her. I made it but she taught me how. It's how you can talk to her."

Rose got unsteadily to her feet, glad she had cut her dress short as the unnecessary material would have made her fall back down.

She swallowed at the sight that greeted her eyes.

They were all on a clearing in the woods. Deep in the forest, so deep in fact, that Rose didn't recognise where she was exactly. She had guessed they were in the gardens, when she had felt the foliage between her fingers. What she had not guessed was the why.

Space.

The Army of vicious sword wilding Lizhards had her surrounded. A circle with more than two rows of the hideous creatures, an enormous prison. The enemy watched her every move. No escape could be gleaned.

As Rose looked around, she noticed the Lizhards' attention suddenly becoming focused on her, instead of the still struggling Doctor. Their eyes bore holes into her and Rose stood, paralysed.

Then, in a move that so resembled a Mexican wave, they all fell to their knees and bowed.

Rose stared in shock, unable to move or breathe, for far longer than she could ever remember doing.

"ROSE!" bellowed the Doctor; he had an almost front row view from where Rose was facing, eleven o'clock. "Press the switch!"

Rose looked back at him, confused.

She saw the rest of their party, hurt but not fatally so, being held tightly down, in some cases painfully by their capturers' strangely thin claws. These were the only members of their reptilian kind not down to their knees, though their heads still bowed down, with dignity.

"Press the switch!" The Doctor repeated, as the creatures rose back to their feet.

Rose looked down at the metal object still in her hands.

The Lizhard nearest him considered that the Doctor was being disrespectful and so gave him a hard knee in his gut. The Doctor would have fallen to his knees had another Lizhard soldier not held him up. He choked on his own breath, only then realising that his mouth was filling with blood. Thank Rasillon for respiratory bypass.

Rose pressed the red light. The big switch that looked to ominous to be pressed.

Pain.

White hot pain.

Her head full of white light.

Then gone.

She opened her eyes to see nothing but blackness.

Blinking rapidly her vision became almost clear, black spots still blinding her, but soon fading.

A woman stood before her. A pale green, almost a mint shade of emerald, ethereal figure. Solid looking, perhaps, but Rose wasn't fooled. The Doctor had looked solid at BAD WOLF bay.

Rose knew the woman was just an image or a projection, the real Issta still inside her head. Rose knew this because the woman looked just like her. A sickening pale green Rose Tyler in a white toga dress and sandals. Her darker green hair piled high on her head resembling a crown.

"We had a deal!" the Doctor's voice cut through the shocked silence, the Issta paying no attention. She looked down at Rose in almost disgust.

"You were supposed to take me, take my body, leave her! Use me!" he was struggling against the two Lizhards holding him down. His desperation made the Goddess laugh. She finally turned to look at him.

"We did, didn't we?" her voice was cold, collected and uncaring. "And it sounded like a good deal at the time. Be in the body of a Time Lord for the rest of that body's life. Of course it wouldn't work if you died, but Time Lords are stronger than mere humans." Her eyes went back to Rose's. Her voice suddenly bone chillingly soft and soothing. "All I had to do was give this girl a lift to this world, than I got to inhabit the body of a Time Lord."

"But you're still in my head." Rose couldn't breathe. The pain still clouding her sight, her fingers stretched out, in a shaking stiffness.

"All that power. The power inside your head. I chose you to be my vessel, you are the thing that connects me to this world." The Issta smiled and Rose felt herself shudder, as she watched her own face twist into something wrong. So very very wrong.

"No!" The Doctor yelled. Almost like he was unable to say anything but the basics.

"Gag him." Sang the Issta.

A thick leather cloth was shoved into the Doctor's mouth before he could move his head.

"Why me?" asked Rose, giving the woman a cold determined look.

"Why not you?" the Issta's was almost hysterical. "You are the most powerful creature in this or the other Universe, you rewrite time and history and space, you bring back the dead and destroy those who think of you as the devil. You are the abomination. You are the BAD WOLF."

"Not anymore." Rose shook her head and wished she hadn't. Her head felt full. Heavy. Like there was something in it, someone in it. Living inside her head, reading her thoughts her, knowing what she would do or say before she said it. It knew her, all of her, everything, all her past, all her present. It was in her so deep, Rose no longer knew where she ended and the invading alien began. The Issta was in her head.

The BAD WOLF and the Lizhard Goddess walked anticlockwise around the circle, like cadged lions at the zoo. Tigers at the circus. Walking at opposite ends, never once taking their eyes away from each other.

"It's not gone. Not really never, will be. You're what will be left in the world when the Universe around you gets destroyed. You were born this second and at the same time have been around since the creation of this plane. This Universe. Like it or not, you are BAD WOLF." The alien almost sounded proud.

"I'm Rose Tyler." When the world ends, and everyone leaves you, all you have is yourself. If Rose knew anything, it was this. She was Rose Tyler.

"You and I both know that's not true. Not Tyler at least." The comment was quiet and biting. Oh, God she knew, she knew about him.

"What's this?" Rose held the device up, for the Issta to see.

"It's a projector." The body snatcher replied. "It projects my image from inside your head out here so we can talk. You have an audience with the Goddess so I'd be careful if I were you."

"But you're not." Growled the BAD WOLF "You're not me."

"But what are you Rose Tyler? An assistant, an associate or an accomplice?" the great Goddess's tone changed once again. From dark and bitter, to mocking and snide.

"Well…" Rose smiled, somebody once told her people often tell the truth in anger. Time to test a theory. "Associate makes me think of Daleks, 'cos hey that's how they see things. Assistant makes me think like I should be wearing a uniform and holding some sort of tray. And the accomplice makes my feel like I've done something wrong."

Rose wasn't afraid, she was a lot of things but she was not afraid. Her fingers twiddled with the device.

"You've pissed me off." the Issta snarled through Rose like lips. The diction as strange as the choice of words, Rose's words. The Issta and Rose were still connected.

"Then, in that case, I shall carry my accomplice title with pride." Rose grinned in triumph.

But how were they connected? If the Issta was so deep inside her head, there had to have been something that was forcing her mind to accept it. Something she had that let the alien inside her mind and kept it there without any rejection. If Rose broke what was holding the Issta there, then the connection would be broken.

"You have no fear?"

"Not right now. I have a much more preferred emotion called anger." And she did. Rose Tyler knew, and she was angry.

"You took my body, when you should have taken the Doctor's. He was the agreed sacrifice. Then what? You changed your mind? Chose to be in mine instead? But he made you promise you would pick him. He would never let someone else get hurt."

"You hold more power." The Issta was all about the power, she was obsessed.

"You live in this world but in the Doctor's body, that was the only way I get to be here. Don't I get a say in this?"

"I was supposed to give you a choice. I changed my mind. You were supposed to have a week to choose whether you wanted to be in this world…with me in the Doctor's body. Or go back to the other world like nothing had happened. When I took your body instead, I couldn't risk you wanting to go back, so I took you away. Took over your mind, fitted you into this time. Jack Harkness was supposed to be sent back to Cardiff to tell the Doctor the deal was off." The Issta moved her lips and made a snarl. "Still, you've had your week whether you were aware of it or not. You're out of time. Chose, stay in this world with me in your body, or go to the other one, but don't worry… I will find someone else to take over. I will live!"

"But, we're still connected, you and me. You're in my body, and the connection is being strengthened." But by what? Something must be keeping her inside Rose's head, something she's had all along, but not been aware of.

The necklace.

Glowing a supernatural gold, the glass warm against her skin. The chain holding it, each piece of metal bared a deep carved symbol like the ones on the amour of the Lizhards.

Rose ripped the necklace from her neck, becoming even more sure as she couldn't even remember when she had put it on. Only that it had always been like that as long as she remembered being here.

"If I break it, the connection fails." Rose coldly claimed. But at what price? The Issta too deep inside her skull, if the binds that held it there broke... "I die. And so do you."

"You're a freak, an impossible freak." She was panicking. The great undefeated Goddess was scared to die. She snarled again, superior. "You will not go through with it."

"Oh ho oh, says she, who is Queen of all her little reptile buddies, what are you, Master Splinter?" Rose was beyond anger and pain. She mocked pitilessly.

"If you bleed, we both die." Crimson droplets showed weakness, showed mortality. If the vessel showed weakness, the Goddess would be cast out. Made out to be a false God.

"I know." Rose looked her double in her cold dark green eyes.

"You don't understand, if you break the stone of essence it will kill you… With the connection broken, you'll die." Tears leaked out of the Issta's eyes.

"And so will you. And that, that makes it so worth it." Cold brown eyes, that once held compassion, fell to the floor.

Rose dropped the necklace onto the grass. Her right shoe raised high.

"NO!" shrieked the Issta.

Rose Tyler's' foot came down with a crunch.

The Issta screamed a high pitched scream that would have made any man's blood run cold. Then she was gone, the image of the alien flicked once, twice, then faded.

Pain.

Worse than before, white hot pain, buried inside her skull, burning deep inside her brain.

No, not inside her brain. Her whole head. Spreading, her head, her spine, her nerves, her hands and feet. Too hot to be fire, too liquid and vicious to be acid.

Rose Tyler was dying.

Blood trickled out of her nose. A ruby red line, so fine you could have missed it.

It poured from her ears and, exhausted, Rose felt herself sway.

Funny, of all the ways to die, she didn't think for a moment it would ever be like this.

She slumped to the floor.

The dry grass innocent in the light of the full moon.

Death in an instant.

Their Goddess was dead, killed by the body she had inhabited.

A BANG as loud as gunfire in the silent wood, the Lizhards were transported back to their ship. To live the life they had before the Issta. An easier, simpler life. Not one where the immortal die. Not like their false God.

"Rose…" the Doctor choked a sob, the Lizhard that had been holding him up, now gone. He slumped helplessly to the floor.

The body, the corpse, so far away, the circle now gone, forced to lay alone, almost in darkness bar the light of the silver moon.

Quiet and peaceful, the body lay.

"Rose…"

The body regenerated.

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))Final DW ep comment((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

**Sorry for the delay, it's not my fault (my Beta has a life other than Doctor Who! With parties and such, can you believe it! She is not one of us!)**

**Anyhow, I wrote this a while ago, way before the Stolen Earth, plus I've had this plan before series Four even started, so how weird is that! **

**Hope you like it, just one more chapter.**

**Thanks, please review.**


	12. Confusion in the DNA Cycle

Confusion in the DNA Cycle

The golden surrounding light turned the grass into a charred charcoal mess. The two hearted being screamed as her cells changed. Re-grown and altered, changed and repaired.

Rose Tyler regenerated, just like she had the past three times.

She saw her first body, chemical blonde, awkward and always in happy-despair.

Then, the day the war started, for her at least and the horror that had followed, flashed into her mind. That day had ultimately turned her into her second incarnation. Ginger, classic dark green eyes. Truth be told, her hair had always been more of a dark red than ginger. But every time she looked in the mirror, she thought of him. Saw him, almost.

Dark hair, almost black, hazel eyes; dark and cold. She had fought so hard to keep that one, that body and the smaller one inside it.

She had failed. They had both died.

Waking in the rainforest.

Hair suddenly lighter, curlier, manageable only by a strange braided style she had picked up from the locals. It was the first thing to go after she had been kidnapped by the Issta. Brown eyes like the ones she'd had all those years ago.

Eighty two years is a long time to live, was the only real though coursing through Rose's mind, other than the pain of the current regeneration.

She wasn't sorry she'd lied to the Doctor.

It was over.

The energy faded.

Rose sat up suddenly, taking her first breath in body number five.

Long blonde hair fell from behind her shoulders.

"Crap, that hurt." Rose laughed high from adrenaline and relief; glad to still be alive, after all.

She got to her feet, swaying dangerously on unsteady legs

"Rose?"

Shifting her feet slightly, she slowly turned around.

Rose never really looked different after each regeneration (minor details aside), a fact she was suddenly grateful for as Gwen took small step towards her. Just her eyes and hair changed; maybe her feet and hands grew or shrunk a centimetre or so. Nothing dramatic. Someone she once knew called the changes nothing but 'confusion in the DNA cycle'. It was the phrase she has learnt to associate with herself.

The Doctor, creased his brow, a lone tear running freely down his cheek. His voice sounded horse…had that been him? Shouting when her death had seemed eminent and permanent?

She smiled, small and unsure.

Donna gaped at her in shock, and Jack swallowed hard, body shaking slightly.

In the distance, she saw Mrs Dawson charge into the depth of the wood. Probably scarred for her life.

"Hi?" she attempted, cheerfully.

Rose felt herself sway.

Then all she knew was black.

* * *

The Doctor placed the other two hearted being upon the medical table in the Torchwood Hub. Yes, there were two hearts; he had checked…three times. His Rose…

Still unconscious, still unbelievably alive.

He ran his eyes systematically over the primitive human medical equipment available and swore. Rose was getting regeneration sickness, just like he had at that Christmas, her left heart beating so slowly, it would soon stop.

Trauma to the already fragile brain would increase and there was a chance she may not wake up.

He glanced over at the confused heart monitor. First slowly, the speeding, too slow on second, too fast the next. Trying to monitor one heart, but getting caught up in the other. The Doctor tore his eyes away from it, then glanced at Jack standing beside him.

"I need another sonic device to counteract the waves from the machine." His said in a fast, mostly hysterical voice. His eyes straying to Jack's for less than a second before returning to Rose.

Jack bit his lip and glanced at Tosh, who ran from the medical area to her desk, searching frantically for something she was almost positive, wasn't there

"Here, will this help?" asked Sarah Jane, handing him her lip stick.

"I don't think it's my shade, do you?" The Doctor snapped sarcastically, giving it back to her.

"It's a sonic lipstick." Sarah replied, ignoring the comment. She pulled off the lid and gave it back to him.

The Doctor nodded thanks and got back to work.

* * *

Rose opened her hazel eyes.

Lighter than the ones she had been born with, sure, but she had always felt better if they were at least some sort of shade of brown. More like her. More recognisably her.

The Doctor.

Would he recognise her?

He fought so hard, was willing to sacrifice so much to get her back, but she had changed. Did he still want her? Even if it was only as a friend, she desperately hoped he did.

Of course, he would recognise her body, not that different. But her?

Most of the time she didn't recognise herself, anymore.

What if Martha had been right?

What if it was possible to prefer the old flavour of ice-cream?

She had to get out.

Rose sat up slowly and started to swing her legs off the bed. She noticed immediately that she still wore the ruined pale blue gown, it bunched up around her knees.

Rose put her hand to the side to steady herself and got up.

"You need rest." Shocked at the voice, Rose turned around suddenly.

Jack.

Arms crossed, he was leaning against the opposite corner of the room. She hadn't noticed him before. Glancing around, she realized she had been moved to somewhere more private, closed off, and quiet. His room, perhaps?

"No." Rose answered, running her had through her hair, while turning her head back to her feet. Her hair was longer, but the room was too dark to see the colour.

"You collapsed." Jack said simply, but he helped her to her feet anyway.

"You know that's all a matter of opinion. To some people I fainted, to some there wasn't enough oxygen getting to my brain." Jack was looking at her in concern, making him appear nervous and unsure. Quite strange, that. "To others I simply decided to lie on the floor for a bit."

Rose frowned. Was that how she talked like now? She sounded like...

"You didn't just lie on the floor." Answered Jack. "The Doctor caught you before you could touch it."

"Oh."

Could be worse.

"Well that was nice of him."

* * *

Rose walked into the main body of the Hub and, like a spell had been cast over it's occupants, all conversation stopped.

"Well." Rose began, uncomfortable, "I wonder what you were talking about."

"You regenerated." Sarah Jane said from somewhere to the right of her. Rose didn't bother to look. She walked over to the machine she had used to contact the Doctor.

"Sort of." Rose replied. Her accent a strange, rough Londoner.

All those years of learning and understanding more than she had ever dreamed, and she sounded like she had just left the council estate. For the first time in years she sounded like she had grown up in the rougher part of London.

Rose looked at the side of her machine, seemly made by another, different woman.

She saw her reflection.

Blonde.

Bright, natural blonde hair. Paler skin to prove it. It rested on the top of her breasts, no fringe, more of a golden than yellow.

Same nose, though, same mouth.

"What happened?" asked Martha.

Rose suddenly saw the Doctor's reflection gazing at her. Their eyes met.

"BAD WOLF."

As soon as Rose answered, it all become too much, the feel of all those eyes watching her, judging her.

She saw her old green coat, hung on a strut, an arms length away from her machine.

She grabbed it.

"I'm going out." She declared.

"What?" yelled Owen. "You can't just leave, you lied to us, you said you were human."

"No, you assumed I was human." Rose put her jacket on, the shoulders were too tight and the sleeves stopped a little past her elbows. Rose sighed dejectedly.

"I figured it being Torchwood and all that was the safest assumption."

"We'd never hurt you." Gwen calmly started.

"That's what the last lot said." Rose declared, walking towards the doors.

"Would you like to change?"

Rose spun around almost violently, like a gun had just been fired or a thunderous explosion.

"What!"

Ianto was holding a pile of clothes in his hands. Rose smiled nervously, as the others looked at him in surprise.

"No…thank you." She said slowly "I'm fine."

"Not even the shoes?"

"Actually," Rose glanced at the once hatred heels. "I kina like them."

With that, she walked out of the Hub.

* * *

Rose sat alone in a bar, nursing a glass of red wine.

She placed it on the otherwise empty circular table and sighed. The bar was part restaurant, all classy, brightly lit with natural light from a near by window (what made up one side of the building) and expensive.

Despite the odd looks Rose was receiving, she felt peaceful here.

She let the ring on her right hand fall onto the table with a loud 'crunk'. Using her thumb and forefinger she spun it around and around on its side.

Her fingers had changed. Thinner, they no longer fit the ring. Not quite willing to be parted from it, though, Rose fixed it to the chain she found in her pocket. The TARDIS key (also on the chain) and now the ring clinked together.

She really should get rid of that ring.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw an all too familiar figure walk past the outside of the building, and head straight into the bar.

The Doctor.

Dam Torchwood cameras.

Putting the chain quickly around her neck, Rose covered it with her jacket before picking up her wine and taking a large gulp.

The Doctor looked around like a small animal looking for predators, before it even thought of leaving its home for food. However, as soon as the Doctor saw Rose she turned into the prey.

He took a seat opposite her.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The Doctor asked.

"When, when I was captured or would that be when I was possessed?" Rose was caught off guard by the directness of his question; she resorted to harsh, brash and random explanations. "I thought we'd had enough of recorded messages and holograms and… I wanted to tell you in person." She was silent for a second before looking him in the eye.

"Just because you never told me." She left that statement hanging in the air, to mean whatever he wanted it to.

"Bad Wold altered your DNA, made you change, become…a Time Lady." The Doctor seemed hesitant, somewhat anxious.

"Yes." Rose began to bite her nails on her left hand.

"But I can't sense you!" the Doctor almost yelled in frustration.

"That's why it's strange." Rose explained. "I have no real telepathic ability, but I am aware if other people have one. Very mild, wouldn't really noticed if you weren't looking. Other then two hearts and great endurance," Rose smiled cheekily. "I got nothing."

"What about regeneration?" asked the Doctor, his eyebrows raised.

Rose made a noise with her tongue and her lips.

"I can't fully regenerate. It's strange… I feel emasculated somehow; it must be how blokes feel."

"Not this bloke." The Doctor fell into her trap and grinned.

"Oh really?"

Sat in a wine bar conversation laced with pure innuendo, the Doctor caught sight of her bitten fingernails. Rose's fingernails. She bit them in this body then.

"You're stuck here." Said the Doctor seriously. "There's no way back."

"Yeah, but stuck with you - that's not so bad."

They talked for a long time after that.

The Doctor almost agreed he was wrong leaving Jack behind. He knew he was wrong getting help from the Issta. He claimed he had thought it was the wrong thing. Even if it was for the right reasons. Getting help from, and making deals with war Gods to help bring back someone you cared about. Not so good.

After such a resentful discussion about Jack, Rose let the subject drop. After all, bringing someone back from the dead was a little too much like doing that kinda of wrong, best intentions none withstanding.

The Doctor left soon after, Rose having asked for more time on her own, to get her head straight. DW

Rose walked into the Hub.

The green coat was gone, as was the dress. In its place, a stylish waist length red jacket and small back dress, black tights and high heeled black shoes. Rose smiled at the Doctor, a beautiful red lipped smile framed by her blonde hair.

"Hi." They greeted at nearly the same time.

An hour later, they were stood around the TARDIS, the Torchwood team long since gone for the night. Martha and Sarah had already arranged lifts home and Donna hovered around Jack's shoulder, too near to be ignored when the time for goodbye hugs came.

"He asked you in an alley too?" asked Martha, her eyebrows raised at Donna and Rose. The women nodded and proceeded to laugh hysterically.

"So, is that how you do it?" asked Jack mockingly. "Lurk around in alleyways waiting to pounce on the first girl you come across?"

"Asking her if she wants to see your spaceship?" Rose joined in.

The past companions burst into childish laugher once more.

"I'd forgotten how childish you two could be together." Said the Doctor, as grandly as he could manage.

Martha, Donna and Sarah Jane said goodbye to Jack, the journalist and the immortal finding almost common ground. They smiled at each other, too extenuative for politeness. They all entered the time and space machine.

"My coat!" the Doctor suddenly realised, a theatrical hand resting on his brow, then he raced off back into the Hub.

"Well, that's him gone." Grinned Jack, as him and Rose watched the Doctor go back down the invisible lift.

"Why do you work for Torchwood?" Rose asked quietly, the avoided question rearing its ugly head.

"Waking up tied to a chair by two women holding nipple claps? Not as fun as its sounds… I had no choice." The last line, looking at Rose clearly, he hadn't wanted to say. "To not get caught and wake up there once a week, I worked for Torchwood. I needed a job no matter what and as I was there for the long hall, I thought I could give it a shot at changing its tactic's on alien encounters."

It was working. Took over a hundred years, but it was working. Not there yet, though. Jack would stay until that job was done.

"You were tortured." Kind, pitying eyes stared at him, Rose's eyes. "The Tortures of Torchwood." Rose looked down, fighting back tears.

"Some people call them scientists." Snorted Jack humorously.

"Ah, the euphemises of war." Old, very old. Jack looked at the woman but before he could ask what she had seen of war, she spoke first.

"So what did you do in the Second World War?"

"Fought in it, got promoted a couple of times but had to carry on being stationed in Cardiff, couldn't move to London." Oh did he remember it well. He had to stop himself going on like an old age pensioner about the 'good old days' when everyone pulled together.

"You'd have walked into yourself."

"Yep, which would have been painful. I have big shoulders."

They were both laughing as the Doctor ran to them, putting the last arm into his brown trench coat.

"Ready?" He asked.

* * *

Doctor Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith had been taken home. Rose and Donna, getting on a little too well for the Doctor's liking, had left together after a suspicious conversation about 'photos' and 'accents'.

The Doctor sighed and pulled out a small DVD. He played it one the TARDIS computers. He'd seen it laying there on Tosh's desk before they had left. Deliberately, he left his coat as an excuse to go back inside the Hub alone.

It was now close to the fifth time he had seen this with the sound on. Slowly he was feeling less guilty about it but more confused. Is this really what she thought?

Did Rose and Jack really think he would do that?

"_Was until, we started listing all the crazy stuff we'd seen trying to out do each other… that's how we realised how much we had in common…but it made me realise…we are the same."_

"_No." _

"_He's gonna leave me behind Jack."_

**THE END**

I know there are loads of questions left unanswered, but have no fear.

I am planning on writing a sequel, which I will start in about a month and a half.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed (and a special thanks to Talia Taylor who always has something nice to say) and my Beta for putting up with my mistakes.

Next story:

_What War Makes Of Us_


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